June 15th, 2002, 08:25 pm
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Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Louisiana A
Posts: 5,278
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UL use of the color Vermilion ( hue study )
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| Times-Picayune | | Jan. 17, 1902 | | | SOUTHWESTERN LOUISIANA INDUSTRIAL | | The football game announced in these columns last week between the Institute team and the boys of St. Landry was played on the institute campus last Saturday afternoon. The Opelousas team brought with them many friends to yell and "root" for their eleven. Lafayette was ablaze with vermilion the institute color. . . . | | |
On the subject of Louisiana's school colors "Vermilion" and white, there may be older mentions, but as of now the article above from the Times-Picayune is the oldest I have found that mentions Louisiana’s colors.
This mention was reported just one day shy of the 4 month mark from when the University of Louisiana (SLII) opened it's doors for the first time on Sept. 18th 1901.
Since the football game mentioned was the very first played next to the Swamp on campus and in the town of Lafayette. It is safe to assume that the color "Vermilion" has been the one and only color of choice for the University of Louisiana for its entire 105 years of sports history.
What has not been etched in stone is the exact which shade of vermilion that was used. This is due the fact that “Vermilion” covers a wide range from a somewhat deep red (not burgundy, although burgundy has been used during Louisiana's history), down the spectrum to being a reddish orange, all the way to what some call translucent vermilion, although this is usually produced with a brush fade.
The deep vivid red is sometimes referred to as Chinese Vermilion, which is vivid and deeper in hue. The reddish orange version of vermilion is often referred to as French Vermilion. In between the two sits the “Vermilion” hue, a near perfect balance between the two.
  
link to original swatch page go to the very bottom of page.
I would suggest the more historical the shade the more likely it was the shade used when the University of Louisiana opened in 1901 probably French Vermilion.
This is a swatch that is produced from the mineral cinnabar if you follow the link below you will see that cinnabar itself comes in different hues
  Link
"It is the bright red of Monet's painting, a dense, opaque color used by Rembrandt and Titian; it is found on paintings from Byzantium, the Roman Empire and in Egypt, in the West and in the East - yet looking for the real thing in an art supply store today can be more difficult than finding decent bagels in Nebraska. It is the pigment that has all but disappeared, the color that has more alchemical lore attached to it than any other, the heaviest paint on the artists' palette: Vermilion. As we trace its origins and uses, its cultural and economcal significance, the story of how this color appeared only to vanish once again will make us into linguists of pigment. It will take us on a journey through time until we end up in a medieval town in the southern tip of Tuscany which is home to a slowly decomposing monument to what used to be the booming industry of mercury mining."... Link
Since the meaning of Vermilion has changed over the years, I tried to find a reference as near the turn of the century as I could. Here is Websters 1913
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
Vermilion \Ver*mil"ion\, n. [F. vermillon. See {Vermeil}.]
1. (Chem.) A bright red pigment consisting of mercuric sulphide, obtained either from the mineral cinnabar or artificially. It has a fine red color, and is much used in coloring sealing wax, in printing, etc.
Note: The kermes insect has long been used for dyeing red or scarlet. It was formerly known as the worm dye, vermiculus, or vermiculum, and the cloth was called vermiculatia. Hence came the French vermeil for any red dye, and hence the modern name vermilion, although the substance it denotes is very different from the kermes, being a compound of mercury and sulphur. --R. Hunt.
"...The Arabic word qirmiz, described the scale insect Kermes ilicis yielding a red dye ... Through association with the mediaeval occupation of Spain by Arabic people the combination qirmiz + minium became the Spanish cremesin which gives us the red colour word crimson. The root of Ar. qirmiz is postulated to be proto-Indo-European. It appears in Sanskrit as krmi and in Lithuanian (a language which yields examples of words of IE origin less developed‘ than in some other living languages) as kermis.
In this instance French similarly has kermès. The Latin variant of this word was vermis. The combination of vermis and minium eventually became vermilion in English. The application of the vermis word broadened to a variety of small creatures and with pejoration gave English vermin and worm. The verm- root continues as a representation of worm‘ in vermicelli and vermifuge. The red colours continue: a variant of qirmiz became carminium, L., and carmin, Old French.
Thus English gained carmine to represent a shade of red, and the word retains its association with the insect produced dye and is seen in the coinage of carminic acid, the actual red compound of cochineal. Pharmacists familiar with the adjective carminative to describe a stomach warming. anti-flatulent medicine will realise that it does not have to be coloured red when it is seen that the root is from carminare, L., to heal by incantation...."
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