Why are paint names causing such a hue and cry?

News has emerged that the animal rights organisation PETA has written to the paint company Farrow & Ball to encourage them to use more ‘vegan-friendly’ names. Rakewell can understand PETA’s concerns over colours such as ‘Dead Salmon’, though Rakewell’s love for eating potted shrimp means that we are struggling to see what is wrong with ‘Potted Shrimp’. The vice president of PETA, Yvonne Taylor, has said: ‘Dead Salmon could become Magic Mushroom, Au Lait could become Lait de Coco and Potted Shrimp – well, you’re the expert, but you get the idea!’ Taylor’s running out of ideas shows how hard it is to come up with names that feel appropriate. Think about it too hard and one starts to feel like Anaxagoras struggling to name the colour of water and snow in the 5th century BC.

But what is a colour? The naming of colours, like the naming of cats, is a difficult matter. There are experts in the field. To see the lengths to which chromatic taxonomy can be taken, Rakewell would refer you to the esoteric practice of nail varnish. Where else will you find the subtlest shade of blush pink referred to as ‘Adore-a-ball’ (Essie) – after all, which pink-lover does not adore a ball? Chanel plays with a slightly straighter bat: their bright red is simply ‘Incendiaire’. Butter’s ‘London fog’ for a smartly recessive grey is also a pleasing collision of wit and weather. Rakewell could go on.

Artists have not proved especially adept at naming colours, often preferring the matter-of-fact approach of naming something after its material: lapis, for example. The one artist who is renowned for inventing a colour, Yves Klein, took the modest approach of naming it after himself.

But how really to name a colour? As T.S. Eliot says, ‘There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter, / Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames’ – but they ought to be on just the right side of the everyday name. When someone gets it right, the world feels like a more colourful place.