Brown

brown, in physics, low-intensity light with a wavelength of about 600 nanometres in the visible spectrum. In art, brown is a colour between red and yellow and has low saturation.

Brown is a basic colour term added to languages after black, white, red, yellow, green, and blue. The word brown derives from Proto-Germanic brunaz and Old High German brun. One of the first written records of the term is from the Middle English poem Cursor mundi (1300; “Surveyor of the World”): “His hare [was] like to the nute brun, / Quen it for ripnes fals dun” (“His hair was like the nut brown / When it for ripeness falls down”).

Pigments for brown have come from raw umber, raw sienna, ochres, cuttlefish ink (sepia), and artificial chemical compounds. Brown pigments are among the oldest and were often used in prehistoric art.

Brown has been classified in various colour systems. Before the invention of colour photography, Werner’s Nomenclature of Colour (1814) was frequently used by scientists attempting to accurately describe colours observed in nature. In that book the so-called tint “Chestnut Brown” is compared to the “Neck and Breast of Red Grouse,” “Chestnuts,” and “Egyptian Jasper.” In the Munsell colour system—adopted in the early 20th century to standardize colour, usually for industry—one of the many variations of brown is identified as 2.5Y 4/10.