Burgundy
Burgundy color is a dark, purplish red named after the wine of eastern France. Maroon is its brownish cousin, named after a chestnut instead of a grape, and neither one is a single pigment.
What color is burgundy?
| Hex | #800020 |
| RGB | 128, 0, 32 |
| CMYK | 0, 100, 75, 50 |
| Warm or cool | Cool for a red, thanks to the violet in it. Maroon, its brownish sibling, tips back toward warm instead. |
| On the wheel | A red pulled deep into violet, the darkest, most purple-leaning member of the red family, opposite the yellow-greens. |
The story of burgundy
Burgundy takes its name from a bottle of wine, and no bottle of Burgundy has ever been quite that color.
The word names the wine region of eastern France before it names anything else. English did not adopt it as a color name until 1881, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, long after the wine itself had a reputation to lend.
Maroon took a different, older path into English, arriving in 1789 from the French marron, meaning chestnut, itself borrowed from the Italian marrone. It has nothing to do with wine and everything to do with a nut: picture the glossy brown-red shell of a fresh chestnut rather than a glass of wine, and you have the color the word originally pointed at.
Put the two side by side and the difference is easy to see once you know to look for it: burgundy leans purple, maroon leans brown. The web agrees, more or less: burgundy is usually given as #800020, maroon as #800000, two hex codes that differ by exactly one digit and look almost identical on a screen. Neither one looks much like an actual glass of wine or a real chestnut, which are both more alive and more particular than a flat six-character code can hold.
Mixing either color is where most beginners get into trouble, because the instinct is to reach for black. Add black to a red and you do not get a deeper red, you get a bruise: dull, flat, and dead in a way no wine or chestnut ever looks. The better route is a crimson darkened with a whisper of its opposite, a touch of green or blue, the same trick that turns a shadow into a color instead of a hole in the paper.
I mix my burgundies and maroons the same way every time: start with a good cool red, add just enough of something cooler or greener to kill the brightness, and stop the moment it looks like wine rather than paint. It takes longer than opening a tube labeled burgundy, and it is the only way I have found to keep a dark red looking like it can still catch light.
Pigment facts
| Colour Index | Not a pigment. A color name for a deep wine red; in watercolor it is always a mixture, usually a cool red darkened with a touch of blue or green rather than black. Maroon, its browner cousin, is likewise a mixture, built from a red and an earth rather than a red and a blue. |
| Transparency | Depends entirely on the mix. Built from transparent reds like quinacridone or alizarin crimson, a burgundy glazes beautifully; built from opaque reds, it sits flatter on the paper. |
| Lightfastness | Depends on the ingredients. A burgundy mixed from lightfast reds, quinacridone, pyrrole or a permanent alizarin, holds up well. One mixed from old-formula alizarin lake will drift and fade like its parent. |
| Granulation | Usually slight to none, since the mixing reds are fine synthetic organics. A version built on ultramarine for the blue component granulates a little more. |
| Staining | High. Most of the reds and blues that make a convincing burgundy are staining pigments, so plan your lights before you lay the wash. |
| Toxicity | Non-toxic in modern formulations. Nothing in a contemporary burgundy or maroon mix carries heavy metals, unless you deliberately mix in an old cadmium red or genuine vermilion. |
These describe the pigment in general. Every brand's tube behaves a little differently, so test yours on scrap paper.
How to mix burgundy
Neither burgundy nor maroon comes in a single tube worth buying; both are better made on the palette, where you decide exactly how purple or how brown the dark red turns out. Start with a transparent, cool red, a permanent alizarin crimson or a quinacridone, and darken it from there.
For burgundy, tip that red toward blue-violet. For maroon, tip it toward a warm brown earth like Indian red instead. The direction you tip in, not the darkness, is the entire difference between the two colors.
| Mix | Recipe | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Burgundy from scratch | Alizarin crimson or quinacridone with a touch of ultramarine | Wine, velvet, a deep floral shadow |
| Maroon from scratch | The same red with a touch of Venetian Red or burnt umber instead | Old brick, a chestnut shell, dried blood |
| Keep it alive | A whisper of Forest Green instead of black, added last | Darkening either color without going dull |
| Wine glass wash | Burgundy very dilute over dry paper, two thin layers | Glass, translucent fabric, a candlelit interior |
| Deep shadow | Burgundy with a little Twilight Indigo | The darkest fold in a red garment |
Closest mix from the Tobio's kit
Poppy Bloom with Twilight Indigo, about three to one, gives the purple-leaning burgundy of a good glass of wine. For maroon's browner cast, swap the indigo for a touch of Venetian Red instead, added slowly. Either way, resist Ivory Black: a speck of Forest Green does the same darkening job and leaves the red looking alive rather than muddy. Test on scrap first, since both colors go dark fast.
The 12-color kit does not include a tube of burgundy, so this is how I get there with what is in the palette. Running low on a color? The 12 paint refills drop straight into the wells.
Using burgundy in watercolor
Use burgundy and maroon for the places in a painting that need weight without going black: the deep fold of a velvet curtain, the far side of a wine bottle, the darkest petal in a bouquet of dark red flowers.
Glazing suits both. A thin layer over a dry, brighter red underneath gives you the depth of a burgundy without losing the glow of the color it sits on, which a single dark mix applied all at once will not do.
They pair well with gold and cream: burgundy next to a warm yellow reads as rich rather than heavy, where burgundy next to another cool color can flatten into a single dark mass.
One thing I learned the hard way: these colors look darker wet than they will look dry, and darker again once they sit next to white paper. Mix lighter than you think you need, let it dry, and darken a second layer if it still needs it. Going back to lift a too-dark wash never ends well.
Everything I use on this page is the Tobio's Watercolor Kit: twelve colors chosen to mix, a walnut palette, cotton paper, and a water brush. Want to see how any two of the colors blend before you commit? Try the interactive color mixing chart.
Get the kitBurgundy vs maroon (and wine red)
Burgundy is the purple one. It carries real blue in it, which is why a good burgundy can look almost black in low light and faintly violet in bright light. Maroon carries brown instead, and reads as a dark, dried red even in full sun.
Wine red is the vaguest of the three, a catch-all term rather than a fixed color, used for anything from a pale rose pink to a burgundy so dark it is nearly black. It borrows its authority from the drink rather than from any agreed swatch, which is exactly the trouble with it. If someone says wine red without a bottle or a paint chip in hand, ask which wine they mean.
If burgundy is a glass of red wine held up to a candle, maroon is the stain it leaves on the tablecloth the next morning.
Questions people ask
What color is burgundy?
Is burgundy warm or cool?
What colors make burgundy?
What is the difference between burgundy and maroon?
Is burgundy toxic?
Why does my burgundy turn to mud?
Sources
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