Rose madder
Rose madder is the commercial name sometimes used to designate a paint made from the pigment madder lake, a traditional lake pigment extracted from the common madder plant Rubia tinctorum.
Madder lake contains two organic red dyes: alizarin and purpurin. As a paint, it has been described as "a fugitive, transparent, nonstaining, mid valued, moderately dull violet red pigment in tints and medum solutions, darkening to an impermanent, dull magenta red in masstone."
History
Madder has been cultivated as a dyestuff since antiquity in Central Asia, South Asia, and Egypt, where it was grown as early as 1500 BC. Cloth dyed with madder root dye was found in the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun and on an Egyptian tomb painting from the Graeco-Roman period, diluted with gypsum to produce a pink color. It was also found in ancient Greece (in Corinth), and in Italy in the Baths of Titus and the ruins of Pompeii. It is referred to in the Talmud as well as mentioned in writings by Dioscorides (who referred to it as ἐρυθρόδανον), Hippocrates, and other literary figures, and in artwork where it is referred to as rubio and used in paintings by J. M. W. Turner and as a color for ceramics. In Spain, madder was introduced and then cultivated by the Moors.
Rose Madder
Rose madder can mean:
See also
Rose Madder (novel)
Rose Madder is a 1995 novel by Stephen King. It deals with the effects of domestic violence (which King had touched upon before in the novels It, Insomnia, Dolores Claiborne, Needful Things, and many others) and, unusually for a King novel, relies for its fantastic element on Greek mythology. In his memoir, On Writing, King states that Rose Madder and Insomnia are "stiff, trying-too-hard novels."
Plot summary
In the prologue, which takes place in 1985, Rose Daniels' husband, Norman, beats her while she is four months pregnant, causing her to suffer a miscarriage. Rose briefly considers leaving Norman but dismisses the idea: Norman is a policeman, and is excellent at finding people. Norman also has a violent temper and was recently accused of assaulting an African-American woman named Wendy Yarrow. The subsequent lawsuit and Internal Affairs investigation has made him even more volatile.
Nine years later, when Rose is making the bed, she notices a drop of blood on the sheet from her nose the night before; Norman had punched her in the face for spilling iced tea on him. Rose realizes that she has passively suffered through Norman's abuse for 14 years and that if she continues to put up with it, he may well eventually kill her. Rose decides to leave Norman, departing from her unidentified city on a bus, with their bank card. Once Norman realizes that Rose is gone, he resolves to hunt her down and kill her.
