Sepia is a reddish-brown color, named after the rich brown pigment derived from the ink sac of the common cuttlefish Sepia.[2] The word sepia is the Latinized form of the Greek σηπία, sēpía, cuttlefish.[3]
Sepia | |
---|---|
Color coordinates | |
Hex triplet | #704214 |
sRGBB (r, g, b) | (112, 66, 20) |
HSV (h, s, v) | (30°, 82%, 44%) |
CIELChuv (L, C, h) | (33, 45, 38°) |
Source | Maerz and Paul[1] |
ISCC–NBS descriptor | Strong brown |
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) |
Sepia ink was commonly used for writing in Greco-Roman civilization. It remained in common use as an artist's drawing material until the 19th century.[2] Grisaille is a painting technique developed in the 14th century in which a painting is rendered solely in tones of gray, sepia, or dark green.[4] In the last quarter of the 18th century, Professor Jakob Seydelmann of Dresden developed a process to extract and produce a concentrated form of sepia for use in watercolors and oil paints.[5]
Sepia toning is a chemical process used in photography which changes the appearance of black-and-white prints to brown.[2][6] The color is now often associated with antique photographs. Most photo graphics software programs and many digital cameras include a sepia tone filter to mimic the appearance of sepia-toned prints.[2][7]
In the 1940s in the United States, music intended for African American audiences was generally called race music or sepia music until the development of the expression rhythm and blues (R&B).[8][9][10] There was a magazine for African-Americans called Sepia, which existed from 1947 to 1983 (although the name Sepia was only applied after a change of ownership in 1953).[11]
Acclaimed Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky used a sepia tone in his 1979 science-fiction film Stalker to visually distinguish scenes set in the ordinary world from the world of the forbidden Zone, which is portrayed in color.[12]