Lably
Skip to content

Silver (color)

Metallic color tone resembling gray

  • 6 min read
  • 5 chapters
Top view of a silver centerpiece bowl by Clemens Friedell, ca. 1914. On display at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Garden, San Marino, California, USA.
Eric Polk · CC BY-SA 4.0

Related on Lably

Through Color, Tint, shade and tone and Computer

The visual sensation usually associated with the metal silver is its metallic shine. This cannot be reproduced by a simple solid color because the shiny effect is due to the material's brightness varying with the surface angle to the light source. In addition, there is no mechanism for showing metallic or fluorescent colors on a computer without resorting to rendering software that simulates the action of light on a shiny surface. Consequently, in art and in heraldry, one would typically use a metallic paint that glitters like real silver. A matte gray color could also be used to represent silver.

History

The first recorded use of silver as a color name in English was in 1481. In heraldry, the word argent is used, derived from Latin argentum over Medieval French argent.

Sign in to keep reading

4 more chapters are free with a Lably account.

More in Physics