Malachite Green

Verdant mineral pigment ground from malachite, unfaded for a thousand years

HEX#3CB371

RGBrgb(60, 179, 113)

HSLhsl(147, 50%, 47%)

HSVhsv(147, 66%, 70%)

CMYKcmyk(66%, 0%, 37%, 30%)

HEXA#3CB371FF

RGBArgba(60, 179, 113, 1)

HSLAhsla(147, 50%, 47%, 1)

OKLCHoklch(82.3%, 0.101, 162)

LCHlch(81%, 41.8, 170)

🎨 Color Palettes

Analogous2-3 adjacent hues (≤60°)

Triadic3 hues spaced 120° apart

Split ComplementaryMain color + colors adjacent to its complement

Complementary2 hues spaced 180° apart

Tetradic (Rectangle)4 hues forming a rectangle

MonochromaticSingle hue with varying saturation and lightness

♿ WCAG Contrast Colors

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Aa14px Body

High Contrast Text

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Suitable for body text, headings, and primary content, ensuring readability for all users

Aa14px Body

Standard Text

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Suitable for regular body content, meeting WCAG AA standards

Aa14px Body

Large Text / UI Components

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Suitable for large text (≥18px bold or ≥24px), icons, UI component boundaries

Aa14px Body

Decorative / Dividers

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Suitable for decorative elements, dividers, non-essential text

📊 Color Scales

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Lightness VariationFixed hue and saturation, stepwise lightness adjustment ±30%

#164129

#226741

#2F8E5A

#3CB472

#5BC88C

#81D5A7

#A7E2C1

Saturation VariationFixed hue and lightness, stepwise saturation adjustment ±30%

#609075

#549C74

#48A873

#3CB472

#30C071

#24CC6F

#18D86E

Lightness + Saturation Mixed VariationSimultaneous lightness and saturation adjustment

#274936

#31684A

#388A5D

#3DAE70

#4AC983

#64D898

#80E5AD

Hue Fine-TuningFixed saturation and lightness, stepwise hue fine-tuning ±15°

#3CB454

#3CB45E

#3CB468

#3CB472

#3CB47C

#3CB486

#3CB490

💡 Use Cases

🎨

Blue-Green Landscape Painting

Malachite Green is a core pigment in blue-green landscape painting, layered to build the verdant texture of mountains and create an idealized, inhabitable nature.

🏛️

Mural Restoration

In restoring ancient murals like those at Dunhuang, Malachite Green is the preferred mineral pigment for accurately recreating historical colors due to its pure hue and strong durability.

🖼️

Heavy Color Gongbi

In Gongbi flower-and-bird and figure paintings, Malachite Green is used to accent garment folds and leaf veins, showing brilliance in the finest details and revealing the artist's skill.

🏺

Ceramic Glaze

In archaistic ceramics, Malachite Green is mixed into glazes, yielding a warm verdancy after firing, continuing the aesthetic tradition of a millennium-old craft.

📜 Origin & History

Malachite Green is one of China's oldest mineral pigments, sourced from natural malachite. As early as the Shang Dynasty, ancestors collected malachite for decoration and rituals; inlaid artifacts have been found in the Yinxu ruins at Anyang.

During the Qin and Han dynasties, Malachite Green was widely used in murals and silk paintings. On the Mawangdui Han tomb silk paintings, it was used alongside Azurite to depict a magnificent realm between heaven and earth, expressing the Han people's imagination of an immortal world.

In the Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern dynasties, as Buddhist art spread eastward, Malachite Green became an important pigment in Dunhuang murals. Artisans ground and levigated malachite, mixing it with binder to paint the verdant ribbons of flying apsaras, which remain strikingly vivid after over a millennium.

During the Tang and Song dynasties, Malachite Green held a paramount position in blue-green landscape painting. Wang Ximeng used it in layered washes in 'A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains,' making mountains glow like jade, perfectly merging the luxury of mineral colors with literati aesthetics.

From the Ming and Qing dynasties to the present, although natural malachite's scarcity makes Malachite Green expensive, it remains irreplaceable in ancient painting restoration and high-end mineral pigments. It symbolizes the ultimate pursuit of natural perfection in Chinese color aesthetics.

🧠 Color Psychology

PeacefulThe verdancy of Malachite Green carries a hint of calm, like a deep mountain lake, slowly quieting restlessness and guiding one back to inner peace.

EternalThe Malachite Green on thousand-year-old cave murals remains bright, granting a sense of timelessness and a yearning for the immortal and classic.

RefinedUnlike the ostentation of bright reds and purples, Malachite Green's verdancy is subtle and restrained, perfectly matching the quiet elegance pursued by literati.

HealingLike being immersed in a forest after rain, the visual experience of Malachite Green effectively alleviates anxiety and awakens the body and mind's self-healing power.

LuxuriousThe natural luster of malachite gives Malachite Green an understated luxurious feel, a sense of nobility built by both material and color.

NaturalSourced directly from malachite without artificial synthesis, Malachite Green carries the primordial power and spirit of mountains and ores.

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