Black is a
color
Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are assoc ...
which results from the absence or complete
absorption of
visible
Visibility, in meteorology, is a measure of the distance at which an object or light can be seen.
Visibility may also refer to:
* A measure of turbidity in water quality control
* Interferometric visibility, which quantifies interference contrast ...
light
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 te ...
. It is an achromatic color, without
hue
In color theory, hue is one of the main properties (called color appearance parameters) of a color, defined technically in the CIECAM02 model as "the degree to which a stimulus can be described as similar to or different from stimuli that ...
, like
white
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...
and
grey
Grey (more common in British English) or gray (more common in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally that it is "without color", because it can be composed o ...
. It is often used
symbolically or
figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have often been used to describe opposites such as
good
In most contexts, the concept of good denotes the conduct that should be preferred when posed with a choice between possible actions. Good is generally considered to be the opposite of evil and is of interest in the study of ethics, morality, ph ...
and
evil
Evil, in a general sense, is defined as the opposite or absence of good. It can be an extremely broad concept, although in everyday usage it is often more narrowly used to talk about profound wickedness and against common good. It is general ...
, the
Dark Ages versus
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
, and
night
Night (also described as night time, unconventionally spelled as "nite") is the period of ambient darkness from sunset to sunrise during each 24-hour day, when the Sun is below the horizon. The exact time when night begins and ends depends ...
versus
day. Since the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
, black has been the symbolic color of solemnity and authority, and for this reason it is still commonly worn by judges and magistrates.
Black was one of the first colors used by artists in
Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...
cave paintings.
It was used in ancient Egypt and Greece as the color of the
underworld
The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underwor ...
. In the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...
, it became the color of mourning, and over the centuries it was frequently associated with
death
Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
, evil,
witches, and
magic
Magic or Magick most commonly refers to:
* Magic (supernatural), beliefs and actions employed to influence supernatural beings and forces
* Ceremonial magic, encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic
* Magical thinking, the belief that unrela ...
. In the 14th century, it was worn by royalty, clergy, judges, and government officials in much of Europe. It became the color worn by English romantic poets, businessmen and statesmen in the 19th century, and a high fashion color in the 20th century. According to surveys in Europe and North America, it is the color most commonly associated with mourning, the end, secrets, magic, force, violence, fear, evil, and elegance.
Black is the most common
ink
Ink is a gel, sol, or solution that contains at least one colorant, such as a dye or pigment, and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing or writing with a pen, brush, reed pen, or quill. Thicker ...
color used for printing books, newspapers and documents, as it provides the highest contrast with white paper and thus is the easiest color to read. Similarly, black text on a white screen is the most common format used on computer screens.
[Heller, Eva, ''Psychologie de la couleur – effets et symboliques'' (2009), p. 126] As of September 2019, the darkest material is made by
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
engineers from vertically aligned
carbon nanotubes
A scanning tunneling microscopy image of a single-walled carbon nanotube
Rotating single-walled zigzag carbon nanotube
A carbon nanotube (CNT) is a tube made of carbon with diameters typically measured in nanometers.
''Single-wall carbon na ...
.
Etymology
The word ''black'' comes from
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
''blæc'' ("black, dark", ''also'', "ink"), from
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic bran ...
*''blakkaz'' ("burned"), from
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...
*''bhleg-'' ("to burn, gleam, shine, flash"), from base *''bhel-'' ("to shine"), related to
Old Saxon
Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Europe). It ...
''blak'' ("ink"),
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050.
There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...
''blach'' ("black"),
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlemen ...
''blakkr'' ("dark"),
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
''blaken'' ("to burn"), and
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
''bläck'' ("ink"). More distant cognates include
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''flagrare'' ("to blaze, glow, burn"), and
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
''phlegein'' ("to burn, scorch"). The Ancient Greeks sometimes used the same word to name different colors, if they had the same intensity. ''Kuanos could mean both dark blue and black.
[Michel Pastoureau, ''Noir – Histoire d'une couleur'', p. 34.] The Ancient Romans had two words for black: ''ater'' was a flat, dull black, while ''niger'' was a brilliant, saturated black. ''Ater'' has vanished from the vocabulary, but ''niger'' was the source of the country name ''Nigeria,'' the English word ''Negro'', and the word for "black" in most modern
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...
(
French: ''noir'';
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
and
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
: ''negro'';
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
: ''nero'';
Romanian
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
**Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
*** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
** Romanian cuisine, tradition ...
: ''negru'').
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050.
There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...
also had two words for black: ''swartz'' for dull black and ''blach'' for a luminous black. These are parallelled in
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...
by the terms ''swart'' for dull black and ''blaek'' for luminous black. ''Swart'' still survives as the word ''swarthy'', while ''blaek'' became the modern English ''black''.
The former is
cognate with the words used for black in most modern
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, E ...
aside from English (
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
: ''schwarz'',
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
: ''zwart'',
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
: ''svart'',
Danish
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...
: ''sort'',
Icelandic: ''svartr''). In heraldry, the word used for the black color is
sable, named for the black fur of the
sable, an animal.
Art
Prehistoric
![Lascaux, Megaloceros](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Lascaux%2C_Megaloceros.jpg)
Black was one of the first colors used in art. The
Lascaux Cave
Lascaux ( , ; french: Grotte de Lascaux , "Lascaux Cave") is a network of caves near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne in southwestern France. Over 600 parietal wall paintings cover the interior walls and ceilings of ...
in France contains drawings of bulls and other animals drawn by
paleolithic artists between 18,000 and 17,000 years ago. They began by using charcoal, and later achieved darker pigments by burning bones or grinding a powder of
manganese oxide Manganese oxide is any of a variety of manganese oxides and hydroxides.Wells A.F. (1984) ''Structural inorganic chemistry'' 5th edition Oxford Science Publications, . These include
* Manganese(II) oxide, MnO
* Manganese(II,III) oxide, Mn3O4
* Man ...
.
Ancient
For the ancient Egyptians, black had positive associations; being the color of fertility and the rich black soil flooded by the Nile. It was the color of
Anubis
Anubis (; grc, Ἄνουβις), also known as Inpu, Inpw, Jnpw, or Anpu in Ancient Egyptian () is the god of death, mummification, embalming, the afterlife, cemeteries, tombs, and the Underworld, in ancient Egyptian religion, usually depict ...
, the god of the underworld, who took the form of a black
jackal
Jackals are medium-sized canids native to Africa and Eurasia. While the word "jackal" has historically been used for many canines of the subtribe canina, in modern use it most commonly refers to three species: the closely related black-backed ...
, and offered protection against evil to the dead. To ancient Greeks, black represented the underworld, separated from the living by the river
Acheron
The Acheron (; grc, Ἀχέρων ''Acheron'' or Ἀχερούσιος ''Acherousios''; ell, Αχέροντας ''Acherontas'') is a river located in the Epirus region of northwest Greece. It is long, and its drainage area is . Its source is ...
, whose water ran black. Those who had committed the worst sins were sent to
Tartarus
In Greek mythology, Tartarus (; grc, , }) is the deep abyss that is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked and as the prison for the Titans. Tartarus is the place where, according to Plato's ''Gorgias'' (), souls are judg ...
, the deepest and darkest level. In the center was the palace of
Hades, the king of the underworld, where he was seated upon a black
ebony
Ebony is a dense black/brown hardwood, coming from several species in the genus '' Diospyros'', which also contains the persimmons. Unlike most woods, ebony is dense enough to sink in water. It is finely textured and has a mirror finish when ...
throne. Black was one of the most important colors used by ancient Greek artists. In the 6th century BC, they began making
black-figure pottery
Black-figure pottery painting, also known as the black-figure style or black-figure ceramic ( grc, , }), is one of the styles of painting on antique Greek vases. It was especially common between the 7th and 5th centuries BCE, although there are ...
and later
red figure pottery
Red-figure vase painting is one of the most important styles of figural Greek vase painting.
It developed in Athens around 520 BCE and remained in use until the late 3rd century BCE. It replaced the previously dominant style of black-figure v ...
, using a highly original technique. In black-figure pottery, the artist would paint figures with a glossy clay
slip
Slip or SLIP may refer to:
Science and technology Biology
* Slip (fish), also known as Black Sole
* Slip (horticulture), a small cutting of a plant as a specimen or for grafting
* Muscle slip, a branching of a muscle, in anatomy
Computing and ...
on a red clay pot. When the pot was fired, the figures painted with the slip would turn black, against a red background. Later they reversed the process, painting the spaces between the figures with slip. This created magnificent red figures against a glossy black background.
In the social hierarchy of
ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...
, purple was the color reserved for the Emperor; red was the color worn by soldiers (red cloaks for the officers, red tunics for the soldiers); white the color worn by the priests, and black was worn by craftsmen and artisans. The black they wore was not deep and rich; the vegetable dyes used to make black were not solid or lasting, so the blacks often faded to gray or brown.
In
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, the word for black, ''ater'' and to darken, ''atere'', were associated with cruelty, brutality and evil. They were the root of the English words "atrocious" and "atrocity". Black was also the Roman color of death and mourning. In the 2nd century BC Roman magistrates began to wear a dark toga, called a ''toga pulla'', to funeral ceremonies. Later, under the Empire, the family of the deceased also wore dark colors for a long period; then, after a banquet to mark the end of mourning, exchanged the black for a white toga. In Roman poetry, death was called the ''hora nigra'', the black hour.
The German and Scandinavian peoples worshipped their own goddess of the night,
Nótt
In Norse mythology, Nótt (Old Norse: , "night"Orchard (1997:120).) is night personified. In both the ''Poetic Edda'', compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the ''Prose Edda'', composed in the 13th century, Nótt is li ...
, who crossed the sky in a chariot drawn by a black horse. They also feared
Hel, the goddess of the kingdom of the dead, whose skin was black on one side and red on the other. They also held sacred the
raven. They believed that
Odin, the king of the Nordic pantheon, had two black ravens, Huginn and Muninn, who served as his agents, traveling the world for him, watching and listening.
File:Tutanhkamun jackal.jpg, Statue of Anubis, guardian of the underworld
The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underwor ...
, from the tomb of Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun (, egy, twt-ꜥnḫ-jmn), Egyptological pronunciation Tutankhamen () (), sometimes referred to as King Tut, was an Egyptian pharaoh who was the last of his royal family to rule during the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty (ruled ...
.
File:Akhilleus Aias MGEt 16757.jpg, Greek black-figure pottery
Black-figure pottery painting, also known as the black-figure style or black-figure ceramic ( grc, , }), is one of the styles of painting on antique Greek vases. It was especially common between the 7th and 5th centuries BCE, although there are ...
. Ajax
Ajax may refer to:
Greek mythology and tragedy
* Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea
* Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris
* ''Ajax'' (play), by the ancient Gree ...
and Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles ( ) or Achilleus ( grc-gre, Ἀχιλλεύς) was a hero of the Trojan War, the greatest of all the Greek warriors, and the central character of Homer's '' Iliad''. He was the son of the Nereid Thetis and Pele ...
playing a game, about 540–530 BC. (Vatican Museums).
File:Pyxis Peleus Thetis Louvre L55 by Wedding Painter.jpg, Red-figure pottery with black background. Portrait of Thetis
Thetis (; grc-gre, Θέτις ), is a figure from Greek mythology with varying mythological roles. She mainly appears as a sea nymph, a goddess of water, or one of the 50 Nereids, daughters of the ancient sea god Nereus.
When described as ...
, about 470–480 BC. (The Louvre)
Postclassical
In the early Middle Ages, black was commonly associated with darkness and evil. In Medieval paintings, the devil was usually depicted as having human form, but with wings and black skin or hair.
12th and 13th centuries
In fashion, black did not have the prestige of red, the color of the nobility. It was worn by
Benedictine
, image = Medalla San Benito.PNG
, caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal
, abbreviation = OSB
, formation =
, motto = (English: 'Pray and Work')
, foun ...
monks as a sign of humility and penitence. In the 12th century a famous theological dispute broke out between the
Cistercian monks, who wore white, and the Benedictines, who wore black. A Benedictine abbot, Pierre the Venerable, accused the Cistercians of excessive pride in wearing white instead of black. Saint
Bernard of Clairvaux
Bernard of Clairvaux, O. Cist. ( la, Bernardus Claraevallensis; 109020 August 1153), venerated as Saint Bernard, was an abbot, mystic, co-founder of the Knights Templars, and a major leader in the reformation of the Benedictine Order throug ...
, the founder of the Cistercians responded that black was the color of the devil, hell, "of death and sin", while white represented "purity, innocence and all the virtues".
Black symbolized both power and secrecy in the medieval world. The emblem of the Holy Roman Empire of Germany was a black eagle. The
black knight
The black knight is a literary stock character who masks his identity and that of his liege by not displaying heraldry. Black knights are usually portrayed as villainous figures who use this anonymity for misdeeds. They are often contrasted with t ...
in the poetry of the Middle Ages was an enigmatic figure, hiding his identity, usually wrapped in secrecy.
Black
ink
Ink is a gel, sol, or solution that contains at least one colorant, such as a dye or pigment, and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing or writing with a pen, brush, reed pen, or quill. Thicker ...
, invented in China, was traditionally used in the Middle Ages for writing, for the simple reason that black was the darkest color and therefore provided the greatest contrast with white paper or parchment, making it the easiest color to read. It became even more important in the 15th century, with the invention of
printing
Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ...
. A new kind of ink, printer's ink, was created out of
soot
Soot ( ) is a mass of impure carbon particles resulting from the incomplete combustion of hydrocarbons. It is more properly restricted to the product of the gas-phase combustion process but is commonly extended to include the residual pyrolysed ...
,
turpentine
Turpentine (which is also called spirit of turpentine, oil of turpentine, terebenthene, terebinthine and (colloquially) turps) is a fluid obtained by the distillation of resin harvested from living trees, mainly pines. Mainly used as a spec ...
and
walnut oil
Walnut oil is oil extracted from walnuts, '' Juglans regia''. The oil contains polyunsaturated fatty acids, monounsaturated fatty acids, and saturated fats.
Composition
Walnut oil is composed largely of polyunsaturated fatty acids (72% of tota ...
. The new ink made it possible to spread ideas to a mass audience through printed books, and to popularize art through black and white engravings and prints. Because of its contrast and clarity, black ink on white paper continued to be the standard for printing books, newspapers and documents; and for the same reason black text on a white background is the most common format used on computer screens.
File:Duccio - The Temptation on the Mount.jpg, The Italian painter Duccio di Buoninsegna
Duccio di Buoninsegna ( , ; – ) was an Italian painter active in Siena, Tuscany, in the late 13th and early 14th century. He was hired throughout his life to complete many important works in government and religious buildings around Italy. Ducc ...
showed Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
expelling the Devil
A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of ...
, shown covered with bristly black hair (1308–11).
File:Fra Angelico 010.jpg, The 15th-century painting of the ''Last Judgement'' by Fra Angelico
Fra Angelico (born Guido di Pietro; February 18, 1455) was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance, described by Vasari in his '' Lives of the Artists'' as having "a rare and perfect talent".Giorgio Vasari, ''Lives of the Artists''. Pengu ...
(1395–1455) depicted hell with a vivid black devil devouring sinners.
File:Portretbenedykty324skiegomnich.jpg, Portrait of a monk of the Benedictine Order (1484)
File:Le Livre du cœur d'amour épris1.jpg, The black knight in a miniature painting of a medieval romance,''Le Livre du cœur d'amour épris'' (about 1460)
File:Gutenberg bible Old Testament Epistle of St Jerome.jpg, Gutenberg Bible
The Gutenberg Bible (also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42) was the earliest major book printed using mass-produced movable metal type in Europe. It marked the start of the " Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of printed ...
(1451–1452). Black ink was used for printing books, because it provided the greatest contrast with the white paper and was the clearest and easiest color to read.
14th and 15th centuries
In the early Middle Ages, princes, nobles and the wealthy usually wore bright colors, particularly
scarlet cloaks from Italy. Black was rarely part of the wardrobe of a noble family. The one exception was the fur of the
sable. This glossy black fur, from an animal of the
marten family, was the finest and most expensive fur in Europe. It was imported from Russia and Poland and used to trim the robes and gowns of royalty.
In the 14th century, the status of black began to change. First, high-quality black dyes began to arrive on the market, allowing garments of a deep, rich black. Magistrates and government officials began to wear black robes, as a sign of the importance and seriousness of their positions. A third reason was the passage of
sumptuary laws
Sumptuary laws (from Latin ''sūmptuāriae lēgēs'') are laws that try to regulate consumption. ''Black's Law Dictionary'' defines them as "Laws made for the purpose of restraining luxury or extravagance, particularly against inordinate expendi ...
in some parts of Europe which prohibited the wearing of costly clothes and certain colors by anyone except members of the nobility. The famous bright scarlet cloaks from
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...
and the peacock blue fabrics from
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...
were restricted to the nobility. The wealthy bankers and merchants of northern Italy responded by changing to black robes and gowns, made with the most expensive fabrics.
The change to the more austere but elegant black was quickly picked up by the kings and nobility. It began in northern Italy, where the Duke of Milan and the Count of Savoy and the rulers of Mantua, Ferrara, Rimini and Urbino began to dress in black. It then spread to France, led by
Louis I, Duke of Orleans Louis may refer to:
* Louis (coin)
* Louis (given name), origin and several individuals with this name
* Louis (surname)
* Louis (singer), Serbian singer
* HMS ''Louis'', two ships of the Royal Navy
See also
Derived or associated terms
* Lewis (d ...
, younger brother of King
Charles VI of France
Charles VI (3 December 136821 October 1422), nicknamed the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé) and later the Mad (french: le Fol or ''le Fou''), was King of France from 1380 until his death in 1422. He is known for his mental illness and psychotic ...
. It moved to England at the end of the reign of King
Richard II (1377–1399), where all the court began to wear black. In 1419–20, black became the color of the powerful Duke of Burgundy,
Philip the Good. It moved to Spain, where it became the color of the Spanish Habsburgs, of
Charles V Charles V may refer to:
* Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558)
* Charles V of Naples (1661–1700), better known as Charles II of Spain
* Charles V of France (1338–1380), called the Wise
* Charles V, Duke of Lorraine (1643–1690)
* Infa ...
and of his son,
Philip II of Spain (1527–1598). European rulers saw it as the color of power, dignity, humility and temperance. By the end of the 16th century, it was the color worn by almost all the monarchs of Europe and their courts.
File:Philip the good.jpg, Philip the Good in about 1450, by Rogier van der Weyden
File:Petrus Christus - Portrait of a Young Woman - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Portrait of a Young Woman'' by Petrus Christus
Petrus Christus (; 1410/1420 – 1475/1476) was an Early Netherlandish painter active in Bruges from 1444, where, along with Hans Memling, he became the leading painter after the death of Jan van Eyck. He was influenced by van Eyck and Rogier v ...
(about 1470)
File:Titian - Portrait of Charles V Seated - WGA22964.jpg, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558), by Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian (Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, nea ...
File:Portrait of Philip II of Spain by Sofonisba Anguissola - 002b.jpg, Portrait of Philip II of Spain (1527–1598)
Modern
16th and 17th centuries
While black was the color worn by the Catholic rulers of Europe, it was also the emblematic color of the Protestant Reformation in Europe and the Puritans in England and America.
John Calvin,
Philip Melanchthon
Philip Melanchthon. (born Philipp Schwartzerdt; 16 February 1497 – 19 April 1560) was a German Lutheran reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, intellectual leader of the Lu ...
and other Protestant theologians denounced the richly colored and decorated interiors of Roman Catholic churches. They saw the color red, worn by the Pope and his Cardinals, as the color of luxury, sin, and human folly. In some northern European cities, mobs attacked churches and cathedrals, smashed the stained glass windows and defaced the statues and decoration. In Protestant doctrine, clothing was required to be sober, simple and discreet. Bright colors were banished and replaced by blacks, browns and grays; women and children were recommended to wear white.
In the Protestant Netherlands,
Rembrandt used this sober new palette of blacks and browns to create portraits whose faces emerged from the shadows expressing the deepest human emotions. The Catholic painters of the Counter-Reformation, like
Rubens, went in the opposite direction; they filled their paintings with bright and rich colors. The new
Baroque churches of the
Counter-Reformation were usually shining white inside and filled with statues, frescoes, marble, gold and colorful paintings, to appeal to the public. But European Catholics of all classes, like Protestants, eventually adopted a sober wardrobe that was mostly black, brown and gray.
File:John Calvin 11.jpg, Swiss theologian John Calvin denounced the bright colors worn by Roman Catholic priests, and colorful decoration of churches.
File:Increase Mather.jpg, Increase Mather
Increase Mather (; June 21, 1639 Old Style – August 23, 1723 Old Style) was a New England Puritan clergyman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and president of Harvard College for twenty years (1681–1701). He was influential in the administ ...
, an American Puritan clergyman (1688).
File:George-Henry-Boughton-Pilgrims-Going-To-Church.jpg, American Pilgrims in New England going to church (painting by George Henry Boughton, 1867)
File:Rembrandt van Rijn - Self-Portrait - Google Art Project.jpg, Rembrandt, ''Self-portrait'' (1659)
File:Portrait of John, Duke of Braganza c. 1630 (The Royal Castle in Warsaw).png, John, Duke of Braganza, later King John IV of Portugal
John IV ( pt, João, ; 19 March 1604 – 6 November 1656), nicknamed John the Restorer ( pt, João, o Restaurador), was the King of Portugal whose reign, lasting from 1640 until his death, began the Portuguese restoration of independence from H ...
(1628)
File:Infantry Armor MET DP277181.jpg, Black painted suit of German armor crafted circa 1600. As with many outfits, black in the piece is used to contrast against lighter colors.
In the second part of the 17th century, Europe and America experienced an epidemic of fear of
witchcraft
Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have ...
. People widely believed that the devil appeared at midnight in a ceremony called a
Black Mass or black sabbath, usually in the form of a black animal, often a goat, a dog, a wolf, a bear, a deer or a rooster, accompanied by their
familiar spirit
In European folklore of the medieval and early modern periods, familiars (sometimes referred to as familiar spirits) were believed to be supernatural entities that would assist witches and cunning folk in their practice of magic. According to ...
s, black cats, serpents and other black creatures. This was the origin of the widespread superstition about black cats and other black animals. In medieval
Flanders
Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to cultu ...
, in a ceremony called ''Kattenstoet,'' black cats were thrown from the belfry of the Cloth Hall of
Ypres
Ypres ( , ; nl, Ieper ; vls, Yper; german: Ypern ) is a Belgian city and municipality in the province of West Flanders. Though
the Dutch name is the official one, the city's French name is most commonly used in English. The municipality c ...
to ward off witchcraft.
Witch trials were common in both Europe and America during this period. During the notorious
Salem witch trials
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused. Thirty people were found guilty, 19 of whom w ...
in New England in 1692–93, one of those on trial was accused of being able turn into a "black thing with a blue cap," and others of having familiars in the form of a black dog, a black cat and a black bird. Nineteen women and men were hanged as witches.
File:Matthewhopkins.png, An English manual on witch-hunting (1647), showing a witch with her familiar spirit
In European folklore of the medieval and early modern periods, familiars (sometimes referred to as familiar spirits) were believed to be supernatural entities that would assist witches and cunning folk in their practice of magic. According to ...
s
File:Black cat eyes.jpg, Black cats have been accused for centuries of being the familiar spirit
In European folklore of the medieval and early modern periods, familiars (sometimes referred to as familiar spirits) were believed to be supernatural entities that would assist witches and cunning folk in their practice of magic. According to ...
s of witches or of bringing bad luck.
18th and 19th centuries
In the 18th century, during the European
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
, black receded as a fashion color. Paris became the fashion capital, and pastels, blues, greens, yellow and white became the colors of the nobility and upper classes. But after the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...
, black again became the dominant color.
Black was the color of the industrial revolution, largely fueled by coal, and later by oil. Thanks to coal
smoke
Smoke is a suspension of airborne particulates and gases emitted when a material undergoes combustion or pyrolysis, together with the quantity of air that is entrained or otherwise mixed into the mass. It is commonly an unwanted by-produc ...
, the buildings of the large cities of Europe and America gradually turned
black
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ...
. By 1846 the industrial area of the West Midlands of England was "commonly called 'the
Black Country'”.
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
and other writers described the dark streets and smoky skies of London, and they were vividly illustrated in the engravings of French artist
Gustave Doré
Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré ( , , ; 6 January 1832 – 23 January 1883) was a French artist, as a printmaker, illustrator, painter, comics artist, caricaturist, and sculptor. He is best known for his prolific output of wood-engravin ...
.
A different kind of black was an important part of the
romantic movement
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
in literature. Black was the color of
melancholy, the dominant theme of romanticism. The novels of the period were filled with castles, ruins, dungeons, storms, and meetings at midnight. The leading poets of the movement were usually portrayed dressed in black, usually with a white shirt and open collar, and a scarf carelessly over their shoulder,
Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron helped create the enduring stereotype of the romantic poet.
The invention of inexpensive synthetic black dyes and the industrialization of the textile industry meant that high-quality black clothes were available for the first time to the general population. In the 19th century black gradually became the most popular color of business dress of the upper and middle classes in England, the Continent, and America.
Black dominated literature and fashion in the 19th century, and played a large role in painting.
James McNeill Whistler made the color the subject of his most famous painting, ''Arrangement in grey and black number one'' (1871), better known as ''
Whistler's Mother
''Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1'', best known under its colloquial name ''Whistler's Mother'' or ''Portrait of Artist's Mother'', is a painting in oils on canvas created by the American-born painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler in 1871. ...
''.
Some 19th-century French painters had a low opinion of black: "Reject black,"
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...
said, "and that mix of black and white they call gray. Nothing is black, nothing is gray." But
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Bo ...
used blacks for their strength and dramatic effect. Manet's portrait of painter
Berthe Morisot was a study in black which perfectly captured her spirit of independence. The black gave the painting power and immediacy; he even changed her eyes, which were green, to black to strengthen the effect.
Henri Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...
quoted the French impressionist
Pissarro
Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro ( , ; 10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but then in the Danish West Indies). H ...
telling him, "Manet is stronger than us all – he made light with black."
Pierre-Auguste Renoir used luminous blacks, especially in his portraits. When someone told him that black was not a color, Renoir replied: "What makes you think that? Black is the queen of colors. I always detested Prussian blue. I tried to replace black with a mixture of red and blue, I tried using cobalt blue or ultramarine, but I always came back to ivory black."
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...
used black lines to outline many of the objects in his paintings, such as the bed in the famous painting of his bedroom. making them stand apart. His painting of black crows over a cornfield, painted shortly before he died, was particularly agitated and haunting. In the late 19th century, black also became the color of
anarchism. (See the section
political movements
A political movement is a collective attempt by a group of people to change government policy or social values. Political movements are usually in opposition to an element of the status quo, and are often associated with a certain ideology. Some ...
.)
File:Carneiro e Gaspar, J. Courtois - Imperatriz Teresa Cristina.jpg, Portrait of Empress Teresa Cristina of Brazil (circa 1870)
File:Whistlers Mother high res.jpg, ''Arrangement in Grey and Black Number 1'' (1871) by James McNeill Whistler better known as ''Whistler's Mother
''Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1'', best known under its colloquial name ''Whistler's Mother'' or ''Portrait of Artist's Mother'', is a painting in oils on canvas created by the American-born painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler in 1871. ...
''.
File:Edouard Manet - Berthe Morisot With a Bouquet of Violets - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets
''Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets'' () is an 1872 oil painting by Édouard Manet. It depicts fellow painter Berthe Morisot dressed in black mourning dress, with a barely visible bouquet of violets. The painting, sometimes known as ''P ...
'', by Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Bo ...
(1872).
File:Edouard Manet 093.jpg, ''Le Bal de l'Opera'' (1873) by Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Bo ...
, shows the dominance of black in Parisian evening dress.
File:Pierre-Auguste Renoir 023.jpg, '' The Theater Box'' (1874) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, captured the luminosity of black fabric in the light.
File:Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) - Wheat Field with Crows (1890).jpg, ''Wheat Field with Crows'' (1890), one of the last paintings of Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...
, captures his agitated state of mind.
20th and 21st centuries
In the 20th century, black was the color of Italian and German
fascism
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...
. (See the section
political movements
A political movement is a collective attempt by a group of people to change government policy or social values. Political movements are usually in opposition to an element of the status quo, and are often associated with a certain ideology. Some ...
.)
In art, black regained some of the territory that it had lost during the 19th century. The Russian painter
Kasimir Malevich
Kazimir Severinovich Malevich ; german: Kasimir Malewitsch; pl, Kazimierz Malewicz; russian: Казими́р Севери́нович Мале́вич ; uk, Казимир Северинович Малевич, translit=Kazymyr Severynovych ...
, a member of the
Suprematist
Suprematism (russian: Супремати́зм) is an early twentieth-century art movement focused on the fundamentals of geometry (circles, squares, rectangles), painted in a limited range of colors. The term ''suprematism'' refers to an abstra ...
movement, created the ''
Black Square
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have ...
'' in 1915, is widely considered the first purely abstract painting. He wrote, "The painted work is no longer simply the imitation of reality, but is this very reality ... It is not a demonstration of ability, but the materialization of an idea."
Black was also appreciated by
Henri Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...
. "When I didn't know what color to put down, I put down black," he said in 1945. "Black is a force: I used black as ballast to simplify the construction ... Since the impressionists it seems to have made continuous progress, taking a more and more important part in color orchestration, comparable to that of the double bass as a solo instrument."
In the 1950s, black came to be a symbol of individuality and intellectual and social rebellion, the color of those who didn't accept established norms and values. In Paris, it was worn by Left-Bank intellectuals and performers such as
Juliette Gréco
Juliette Gréco (; 7 February 1927 – 23 September 2020) was a French singer and actress. Her best known songs are "Paris Canaille" (1962, originally sung by Léo Ferré), "La Javanaise" (1963, written by Serge Gainsbourg for Gréco) and "Désh ...
, and by some members of the
Beat Movement in New York and San Francisco.
[Eva Heller, ''Psychologie de la Couleur – effets et symboliques'', p. 120.] Black leather jackets were worn by motorcycle gangs such as the
Hells Angels
The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC) is a worldwide outlaw motorcycle club whose members typically ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles. In the United States and Canada, the Hells Angels are incorporated as the Hells Angels Motorcycle Corporati ...
and street gangs on the fringes of society in the United States. Black as a color of rebellion was celebrated in such films as ''
The Wild One
''The Wild One'' is a 1953 American crime film directed by László Benedek and produced by Stanley Kramer. The picture is most noted for the character of Johnny Strabler, portrayed by Marlon Brando, whose persona became a cultural icon of the 1 ...
'', with
Marlon Brando. By the end of the 20th century, black was the emblematic color of the
punk subculture punk fashion
Punk fashion is the clothing, hairstyles, cosmetics, jewellery, and body modifications of the punk counterculture. Punk fashion varies widely, ranging from Vivienne Westwood designs to styles modeled on bands like The Exploited to the dressed ...
, and the
goth subculture. Goth fashion, which emerged in England in the 1980s, was inspired by
Victorian era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...
mourning dress.
In men's fashion, black gradually ceded its dominance to navy blue, particularly in business suits. Black evening dress and formal dress in general were worn less and less. In 1960,
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
was the last American President to be inaugurated wearing formal dress; President
Lyndon Johnson and all his successors were inaugurated wearing business suits.
Women's fashion was revolutionized and simplified in 1926 by the French designer
Coco Chanel
Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel ( , ; 19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971) was a French fashion designer and businesswoman. The founder and namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post-World War I era with popularizing a sporty, c ...
, who published a drawing of a simple black dress in ''Vogue'' magazine. She famously said, "A woman needs just three things; a black dress, a black sweater, and, on her arm, a man she loves."
French designer
Jean Patou
Jean Patou (; 27 September 1887 – 8 March 1936) was a French fashion designer, and founder of the Jean Patou brand.
Early life
Patou was born in Paris, France in 1887. Patou's family's business was tanning and furs. Patou worked with his ...
also followed suit by creating a black collection in 1929. Other designers contributed to the trend of the
little black dress
The little black dress (LBD) is a black evening or cocktail dress, cut simply and often quite short. Fashion historians ascribe the origins of the little black dress to the 1920s designs of Coco Chanel. It is intended to be long-lasting, versat ...
. The Italian designer
Gianni Versace
Giovanni Maria "Gianni" Versace (; 2 December 1946 – 15 July 1997) was an Italian fashion designer, socialite and businessman. He was the founder of Versace, an international luxury-fashion house that produces accessories, fragrances, make-u ...
said, "Black is the quintessence of simplicity and elegance," and French designer
Yves Saint Laurent said, "black is the liaison which connects art and fashion.
One of the most famous black dresses of the century was designed by
Hubert de Givenchy
Count Hubert James Marcel Taffin de Givenchy (; 21 February 1927 – 10 March 2018) was a French aristocrat and fashion designer who founded the luxury fashion and perfume house of Givenchy in 1952. He is famous for having designed much of the ...
and was worn by
Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 film ''
Breakfast at Tiffany's''.
The American
civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...
in the 1950s was a struggle for the political equality of
African Americans. It developed into the
Black Power movement in the early 1960s until the late 1980s, and the
Black Lives Matter
Black Lives Matter (abbreviated BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people. Its primary concerns are incidents of police br ...
movement in the 2010s and 2020s. It also popularized the slogan "
Black is Beautiful
Black is beautiful is a cultural movement that was started in the United States in the 1960s by African Americans. It later spread beyond the United States, most prominently in the writings of the Black Consciousness Movement of Steve Biko in ...
".
File:Malevich.black-square.jpg, The ''Black Square
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have ...
'' (1915) by Kazimir Malevich is considered the first purely abstract painting (Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow).
File:Lady Amaranth.jpg, The goth fashion
Gothic fashion is a clothing style marked by dark, mysterious, antiquated, homogenous, and often genderless features. It is worn by members of the Goth subculture. Dress, typical gothic fashion includes dyed black hair, exotic hairstyles, dark ...
model Lady Amaranth. Goth fashion was inspired by British Victorian mourning costumes.
Science
Physics
In the
visible spectrum
The visible spectrum is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to the human eye. Electromagnetic radiation in this range of wavelengths is called ''visible light'' or simply light. A typical human eye will respond to wa ...
, black is the result of the absorption of all colors. Black can be defined as the visual impression experienced when no
visible light
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 te ...
reaches the eye.
Pigment
A pigment is a colored material that is completely or nearly insoluble in water. In contrast, dyes are typically soluble, at least at some stage in their use. Generally dyes are often organic compounds whereas pigments are often inorganic compou ...
s or
dyes that absorb light rather than reflect it back to the eye "look black". A black pigment can, however, result from a ''combination'' of several pigments that collectively absorb all colors. If appropriate proportions of three primary pigments are mixed, the result reflects so little light as to be called "black". This provides two superficially opposite but actually complementary descriptions of black. Black is the absorption of all colors of light, or an exhaustive combination of multiple colors of pigment.
![Vantablack_01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Vantablack_01.JPG)
In physics, a
black body
A black body or blackbody is an idealized physical body that absorbs all incident electromagnetic radiation, regardless of frequency or angle of incidence. The name "black body" is given because it absorbs all colors of light. A black body ...
is a perfect absorber of light, but, by a thermodynamic rule, it is also the best emitter. Thus, the best radiative cooling, out of sunlight, is by using black paint, though it is important that it be black (a nearly perfect absorber) in the
infrared
Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...
as well. In elementary science, far
ultraviolet
Ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength from 10 nm (with a corresponding frequency around 30 PHz) to 400 nm (750 THz), shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiation ...
light is called "
black light" because, while itself unseen, it causes many minerals and other substances to
fluoresce
Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, the emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore a lower photon energy, tha ...
.
Absorption of light is contrasted by
transmission,
reflection Reflection or reflexion may refer to:
Science and technology
* Reflection (physics), a common wave phenomenon
** Specular reflection, reflection from a smooth surface
*** Mirror image, a reflection in a mirror or in water
** Signal reflection, in ...
and
diffusion
Diffusion is the net movement of anything (for example, atoms, ions, molecules, energy) generally from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Diffusion is driven by a gradient in Gibbs free energy or chemica ...
, where the light is only redirected, causing objects to appear transparent, reflective or white respectively. A material is said to be black if most incoming light is
absorbed equally in the material. Light (
electromagnetic radiation
In physics, electromagnetic radiation (EMR) consists of waves of the electromagnetic (EM) field, which propagate through space and carry momentum and electromagnetic radiant energy. It includes radio waves, microwaves, infrared, (visible) li ...
in the
visible spectrum
The visible spectrum is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to the human eye. Electromagnetic radiation in this range of wavelengths is called ''visible light'' or simply light. A typical human eye will respond to wa ...
)
interacts with the
atom
Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons.
Every solid, liquid, gas, ...
s and
molecule
A molecule is a group of two or more atoms held together by attractive forces known as chemical bonds; depending on context, the term may or may not include ions which satisfy this criterion. In quantum physics, organic chemistry, and bioche ...
s, which causes the energy of the light to be converted into other forms of energy, usually heat. This means that black surfaces can act as thermal collectors, absorbing light and generating heat (see
Solar thermal collector
A solar thermal collector collects heat by absorbing sunlight. The term "solar collector" commonly refers to a device for solar hot water heating, but may refer to large power generating installations such as solar parabolic troughs and so ...
).
As of September 2019, the darkest material is made from vertically aligned carbon nanotubes. The material was grown by MIT engineers and was reported to have a
99.995% absorption rate of any incoming light.
This surpasses any former darkest materials including
Vantablack
Vantablack is a brand name for a class of super-black coatings with total hemispherical reflectances (THR) below 1.5% in the visible spectrum. The coatings were invented by Ben Jensen, who first publicly unveiled them in July 2014, and commerci ...
, which has a peak absorption rate of 99.965% in the visible spectrum.
Chemistry
Pigments
The earliest pigments used by Neolithic man were
charcoal,
red ocher
Ochre ( ; , ), or ocher in American English, is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. It ranges in colour from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the colours produced ...
and
yellow ocher. The black lines of cave art were drawn with the tips of burnt torches made of a wood with
resin
In polymer chemistry and materials science, resin is a solid or highly viscous substance of plant or synthetic origin that is typically convertible into polymers. Resins are usually mixtures of organic compounds. This article focuses on n ...
.
[Anne Varichon, ''Couleurs – pigments et teintures dans les mains des peuples'', p. 256.] Different charcoal pigments were made by burning different woods and animal products, each of which produced a different tone. The charcoal would be ground and then mixed with animal fat to make the pigment.
* ''Vine black'' was produced in Roman times by burning the cut branches of grapevines. It could also be produced by burning the remains of the crushed grapes, which were collected and dried in an oven. According to the historian
Vitruvius
Vitruvius (; c. 80–70 BC – after c. 15 BC) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work entitled '' De architectura''. He originated the idea that all buildings should have three attribut ...
, the deepness and richness of the black produced corresponded to the quality of the wine. The finest wines produced a black with a bluish tinge the color of
indigo
Indigo is a deep color close to the color wheel blue (a primary color in the RGB color space), as well as to some variants of ultramarine, based on the ancient dye of the same name. The word "indigo" comes from the Latin word ''indicum'', m ...
.
The 15th-century painter Cennino Cennini described how this pigment was made during the Renaissance in his famous handbook for artists: "...there is a black which is made from the tendrils of vines. And these tendrils need to be burned. And when they have been burned, throw some water onto them and put them out and then mull them in the same way as the other black. And this is a lean and black pigment and is one of the perfect pigments that we use."
[Lara Broecke, ''Cennino Cennini's ''Il Libro dell'Arte'': a New English Translation and Commentary with Italian Transcription'', Archetype 2015, p. 60.]
Cennini also noted that "There is another black which is made from burnt almond shells or peaches and this is a perfect, fine black."
Similar fine blacks were made by burning the pits of the peach, cherry or apricot. The powdered charcoal was then mixed with
gum arabic
Gum arabic, also known as gum sudani, acacia gum, Arabic gum, gum acacia, acacia, Senegal gum, Indian gum, and by other names, is a natural gum originally consisting of the hardened sap of two species of the ''Acacia'' tree, '' Senegalia se ...
or the yellow of an egg to make a paint.
Different civilizations burned different plants to produce their charcoal pigments. The
Inuit
Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...
of Alaska used wood charcoal mixed with the blood of
seals
Seals may refer to:
* Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly:
** Earless seal, or "true seal"
** Fur seal
* Seal (emblem), a device to impress an emblem, used as a means of a ...
to paint masks and wooden objects. The Polynesians burned coconuts to produce their pigment.
* ''
Lamp black
Carbon black (subtypes are acetylene black, channel black, furnace black, lamp black and thermal black) is a material produced by the incomplete combustion of coal and coal tar, vegetable matter, or petroleum products, including fuel oil, fluid ...
'' was used as a pigment for painting and frescoes. as a dye for fabrics, and in some societies for making tattoos. The 15th century Florentine painter Cennino Cennini described how it was made during the Renaissance: "... take a lamp full of linseed oil and fill the lamp with the oil and light the lamp. Then place it, lit, under a thoroughly clean pan and make sure that the flame from the lamp is two or three fingers from the bottom of the pan. The smoke that comes off the flame will hit the bottom of the pan and gather, becoming thick. Wait a bit. take the pan and brush this pigment (that is, this smoke) onto paper or into a pot with something. And it is not necessary to mull or grind it because it is a very fine pigment. Re-fill the lamp with the oil and put it under the pan like this several times and, in this way, make as much of it as is necessary."
This same pigment was used by Indian artists to paint the
Ajanta Caves, and as dye in ancient Japan.
* ''
Ivory black
Bone char ( lat, carbo animalis) is a porous, black, granular material produced by charring animal bones. Its composition varies depending on how it is made; however, it consists mainly of tricalcium phosphate (or hydroxyapatite) 57–80%, calci ...
'', also known as
bone char
Bone char ( lat, carbo animalis) is a porous, black, granular material produced by charring animal bones. Its composition varies depending on how it is made; however, it consists mainly of tricalcium phosphate (or hydroxyapatite) 57–80%, calci ...
, was originally produced by burning ivory and mixing the resulting charcoal powder with oil. The color is still made today, but ordinary animal bones are substituted for ivory.
* ''
Mars black'' is a black pigment made of synthetic
iron oxides
Iron oxides are chemical compounds composed of iron and oxygen. Several iron oxides are recognized. All are black magnetic solids. Often they are non-stoichiometric. Oxyhydroxides are a related class of compounds, perhaps the best known of whi ...
. It is commonly used in water-colors and oil painting. It takes its name from
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...
, the god of war and patron of iron.
Dyes
Good-quality black
dyes were not known until the middle of the 14th century. The most common early dyes were made from bark, roots or fruits of different trees; usually walnuts, chestnuts, or certain oak trees. The blacks produced were often more gray, brown or bluish. The cloth had to be dyed several times to darken the color. One solution used by dyers was add to the dye some iron filings, rich in iron oxide, which gave a deeper black. Another was to first dye the fabric dark blue, and then to dye it black.
A much richer and deeper black dye was eventually found made from the
oak apple
Oak apple or oak gall is the common name for a large, round, vaguely apple-like gall commonly found on many species of oak. Oak apples range in size from in diameter and are caused by chemicals injected by the larva of certain kinds of gall ...
or "gall-nut". The gall-nut is a small round tumor which grows on oak and other varieties of trees. They range in size from 2–5 cm, and are caused by chemicals injected by the larva of certain kinds of
gall wasp
Gall wasps, also incorrectly called gallflies, are hymenopterans of the family Cynipidae in the wasp superfamily Cynipoidea. Their common name comes from the galls they induce on plants for larval development. About 1,300 species of this gener ...
in the family Cynipidae.
The dye was very expensive; a great quantity of gall-nuts were needed for a very small amount of dye. The gall-nuts which made the best dye came from Poland, eastern Europe, the near east and North Africa. Beginning in about the 14th century, dye from gall-nuts was used for clothes of the kings and princes of Europe.
Another important source of natural black dyes from the 17th century onwards was the
logwood tree
''Haematoxylum campechianum'' (blackwood, bloodwood tree, bluewood, campeachy tree, campeachy wood, campeche logwood, campeche wood, Jamaica wood, logwood or logwood tree) is a species of flowering tree in the legume family, Fabaceae, that is na ...
, or
Haematoxylum campechianum
''Haematoxylum campechianum'' (blackwood, bloodwood tree, bluewood, campeachy tree, campeachy wood, campeche logwood, campeche wood, Jamaica wood, logwood or logwood tree) is a species of flowering tree in the legume family, Fabaceae, that is ...
, which also produced reddish and bluish dyes. It is a species of
flowering
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism ...
tree in the
legume family,
Fabaceae, that is native to southern Mexico and northern Central America.
The modern nation of Belize grew from 17th century English logwood logging camps.
Since the mid-19th century, synthetic black dyes have largely replaced natural dyes. One of the important synthetic blacks is
Nigrosin
In staining dyes, nigrosin (CI 50415, Solvent black 5) is a mixture of black synthetic dyes made by heating a mixture of nitrobenzene, aniline, and hydrochloric acid in the presence of copper or iron. Related to induline, it is a mixture of phena ...
, a mixture of synthetic black dyes (CI 50415, Solvent black 5) made by heating a mixture of
nitrobenzene,
aniline
Aniline is an organic compound with the formula C6 H5 NH2. Consisting of a phenyl group attached to an amino group, aniline is the simplest aromatic amine. It is an industrially significant commodity chemical, as well as a versatile starti ...
and aniline hydrochloride in the presence of a copper or iron
catalyst
Catalysis () is the process of increasing the rate of a chemical reaction by adding a substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed in the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recyc ...
. Its main industrial uses are as a colorant for lacquers and varnishes and in marker-pen inks.
Inks
The first known inks were made by the Chinese, and date back to the 23rd century B.C. They used natural plant dyes and minerals such as
graphite
Graphite () is a crystalline form of the element carbon. It consists of stacked layers of graphene. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable form of carbon under standard conditions. Synthetic and natural graphite are consumed on lar ...
ground with water and applied with an
ink brush
Ink is a gel, sol, or solution that contains at least one colorant, such as a dye or pigment, and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing or writing with a pen, brush, reed pen, or quill. ...
. Early Chinese inks similar to the modern
inkstick
Inksticks () or ink cakes are a type of solid Chinese ink used traditionally in several Chinese and East Asian art forms such as calligraphy and brush painting. Inksticks are made mainly of soot and animal glue, sometimes with incense or medici ...
have been found dating to about 256 BC at the end of the
Warring States period
The Warring States period () was an era in ancient Chinese history characterized by warfare, as well as bureaucratic and military reforms and consolidation. It followed the Spring and Autumn period and concluded with the Qin wars of conquest ...
. They were produced from
soot
Soot ( ) is a mass of impure carbon particles resulting from the incomplete combustion of hydrocarbons. It is more properly restricted to the product of the gas-phase combustion process but is commonly extended to include the residual pyrolysed ...
, usually produced by burning pine wood, mixed with
animal glue
Animal glue is an adhesive that is created by prolonged boiling of animal connective tissue in a process called rendering. In addition to being used as an adhesive it is used for coating and sizing, in decorative composition ornaments, and as a ...
. To make ink from an inkstick, the stick is continuously ground against an
inkstone
An inkstone is traditional Chinese stationery. It is a stone mortar for the grinding and containment of ink. In addition to stone, inkstones are also manufactured from clay, bronze, iron, and porcelain. The device evolved from a rubbing tool us ...
with a small quantity of water to produce a dark liquid which is then applied with an
ink brush
Ink is a gel, sol, or solution that contains at least one colorant, such as a dye or pigment, and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing or writing with a pen, brush, reed pen, or quill. ...
. Artists and calligraphists could vary the thickness of the resulting ink by reducing or increasing the intensity and time of ink grinding. These inks produced the delicate shading and subtle or dramatic effects of
Chinese brush painting
Chinese painting () is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. Painting in the traditional style is known today in Chinese as ''guó huà'' (), meaning "national painting" or "native painting", as opposed to Western style ...
.
India ink (or "Indian ink" in
British English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
) is a black ink once widely used for writing and printing and now more commonly used for drawing, especially when inking comic books and comic strips. The technique of making it probably came from China. India ink has been in use in India since at least the 4th century BC, where it was called
''masi''. In India, the black color of the ink came from
bone char
Bone char ( lat, carbo animalis) is a porous, black, granular material produced by charring animal bones. Its composition varies depending on how it is made; however, it consists mainly of tricalcium phosphate (or hydroxyapatite) 57–80%, calci ...
, tar,
pitch and other substances.
The ancient Romans had a black writing ink they called ''
atramentum librarium''. Its name came from the Latin word ''atrare'', which meant to make something black. (This was the same root as the English word ''atrocious''.) It was usually made, like India ink, from soot, although one variety, called ''atramentum elephantinum'', was made by burning the ivory of elephants.
Gall-nuts were also used for making fine black writing ink.
Iron gall ink
Iron gall ink (also known as common ink, standard ink, oak gall ink or iron gall nut ink) is a purple-black or brown-black ink made from iron salts and tannic acids from vegetable sources. It was the standard ink formulation used in Europe for ...
(also known as iron gall nut ink or oak gall ink) was a purple-black or brown-black ink made from iron salts and
tannic acid
Tannic acid is a specific form of tannin, a type of polyphenol. Its weak acidity ( pKa around 6) is due to the numerous phenol groups in the structure. The chemical formula for commercial tannic acid is often given as C76H52O46, which corresp ...
s from gall nut. It was the standard writing and drawing ink in Europe, from about the 12th century to the 19th century, and remained in use well into the 20th century.
File:Charcoal sticks 051907.jpg, Sticks of vine charcoal and compressed charcoal. Charcoal, along with red and yellow ochre, was one of the first pigments used by Paleolithic man.
File:Inkstick.jpg, A Chinese inkstick
Inksticks () or ink cakes are a type of solid Chinese ink used traditionally in several Chinese and East Asian art forms such as calligraphy and brush painting. Inksticks are made mainly of soot and animal glue, sometimes with incense or medici ...
, in the form of lotus flowers and blossoms. Inksticks are used in Chinese calligraphy and brush painting.
File:Živočišné uhlí (Carbocit).jpg, Ivory black or bone char
Bone char ( lat, carbo animalis) is a porous, black, granular material produced by charring animal bones. Its composition varies depending on how it is made; however, it consists mainly of tricalcium phosphate (or hydroxyapatite) 57–80%, calci ...
, a natural black pigment made by burning animal bones.
File:Oak apple.jpg, The oak apple
Oak apple or oak gall is the common name for a large, round, vaguely apple-like gall commonly found on many species of oak. Oak apples range in size from in diameter and are caused by chemicals injected by the larva of certain kinds of gall ...
or gall-nut, a tumor growing on oak trees, was the main source of black dye and black writing ink from the 14th century until the 19th century.
File:Noir de fumee.jpg, The industrial production of lamp black
Carbon black (subtypes are acetylene black, channel black, furnace black, lamp black and thermal black) is a material produced by the incomplete combustion of coal and coal tar, vegetable matter, or petroleum products, including fuel oil, fluid ...
, made by producing, collecting and refining soot, in 1906.
Astronomy
* A
black hole is a region of
spacetime
In physics, spacetime is a mathematical model that combines the three dimensions of space and one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional manifold. Spacetime diagrams can be used to visualize relativistic effects, such as why differ ...
where gravity prevents anything, including
light
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 te ...
, from escaping. The theory of
general relativity
General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics ...
predicts that a sufficiently compact
mass
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...
will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined boundary called an
event horizon
In astrophysics, an event horizon is a boundary beyond which events cannot affect an observer. Wolfgang Rindler coined the term in the 1950s.
In 1784, John Michell proposed that gravity can be strong enough in the vicinity of massive compact ob ...
that marks the point of no return. It is called "black" because it absorbs all the light that hits the horizon, reflecting nothing, just like a perfect
black body
A black body or blackbody is an idealized physical body that absorbs all incident electromagnetic radiation, regardless of frequency or angle of incidence. The name "black body" is given because it absorbs all colors of light. A black body ...
in
thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of th ...
. Black holes of stellar mass are expected to form when very massive stars collapse at the end of their life cycle. After a black hole has formed it can continue to grow by absorbing mass from its surroundings. By absorbing other stars and merging with other black holes,
supermassive black hole
A supermassive black hole (SMBH or sometimes SBH) is the largest type of black hole, with its mass being on the order of hundreds of thousands, or millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun (). Black holes are a class of astronomical ob ...
s of millions of solar masses may form. There is general consensus that supermassive black holes exist in the centers of most
galaxies. Although a black hole itself is black, infalling material forms an
accretion disk, one of the brightest types of object in the universe.
*
Black-body radiation refers to the radiation coming from a body at a given temperature where all incoming energy (light) is converted to heat.
* Black sky refers to the appearance of space as one emerges from Earth's atmosphere.
File:NGC 406 Hubble WikiSky.jpg, Image of the NGC 406 galaxy from the Hubble Space Telescope
File:Spirit Rover-Mars Night Sky.jpg, The night sky seen from Mars, with the two moons of Mars visible, taken by the NASA Spirit Rover.
File:Top of Atmosphere.jpg, Outside Earth's atmosphere, the sky is black day and night.
File:Olber's Paradox - All Points.gif, An illustration of Olbers' paradox
Olbers's paradox, also known as the dark night sky paradox, is an argument in astrophysics and physical cosmology that says that the darkness of the night sky conflicts with the assumption of an infinite and eternal static universe. In the hyp ...
(see below)
File:Black hole - Messier 87 crop max res.jpg, Image of the central black hole of Messier 87 taken by the Event Horizon Telescope.
Why the night sky and space are black – Olbers' paradox
The fact that
outer space
Outer space, commonly shortened to space, is the expanse that exists beyond Earth and its atmosphere and between celestial bodies. Outer space is not completely empty—it is a near-perfect vacuum containing a low density of particles, pred ...
is black is sometimes called
Olbers' paradox
Olbers's paradox, also known as the dark night sky paradox, is an argument in astrophysics and physical cosmology that says that the darkness of the night sky conflicts with the assumption of an infinite and eternal static universe. In the hyp ...
. In theory, because the universe is full of stars, and is believed to be infinitely large, it would be expected that the light of an infinite number of stars would be enough to brilliantly light the whole universe all the time. However, the background color of outer space is black. This contradiction was first noted in 1823 by German astronomer
Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers
Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers (; ; 11 October 1758 – 2 March 1840) was a German physician and astronomer.
Life and career
Olbers was born in Arbergen, Germany, today part of Bremen, and studied to be a physician at Göttingen (1777–80 ...
, who posed the question of why the night sky was black.
The current accepted answer is that, although the universe may be infinitely large, it is not infinitely old. It is thought to be about 13.8 billion years old, so we can only see objects as far away as the distance light can travel in 13.8 billion years. Light from stars farther away has not reached Earth, and cannot contribute to making the sky bright. Furthermore, as the universe is expanding, many stars are moving away from Earth. As they move, the wavelength of their light becomes longer, through the
Doppler effect, and shifts toward red, or even becomes invisible. As a result of these two phenomena, there is not enough starlight to make space anything but black.
The daytime sky on Earth is blue because light from the Sun strikes molecules in Earth's atmosphere scattering light in all directions. Blue light is scattered more than other colors, and reaches the eye in greater quantities, making the daytime sky appear blue. This is known as
Rayleigh scattering
Rayleigh scattering ( ), named after the 19th-century British physicist Lord Rayleigh (John William Strutt), is the predominantly elastic scattering of light or other electromagnetic radiation by particles much smaller than the wavelength of th ...
.
The nighttime sky on Earth is black because the part of Earth experiencing night is facing away from the Sun, the light of the Sun is blocked by Earth itself, and there is no other bright nighttime source of light in the vicinity. Thus, there is not enough light to undergo Rayleigh scattering and make the sky blue. On the Moon, on the other hand, because there is virtually no atmosphere to scatter the light, the sky is black both day and night. This also holds true for other locations without an atmosphere, such as
Mercury.
Biology
File:Corvus brachyrhynchos 30196.JPG, The American crow
A crow is a bird of the genus '' Corvus'', or more broadly a synonym for all of ''Corvus''. Crows are generally black in colour. The word "crow" is used as part of the common name of many species. The related term "raven" is not pinned scientifica ...
is one of the most intelligent of all animals.
File:01 Schwarzbär.jpg, American black bear (Ursus americanus) near Riding Mountain Park, Manitoba, Canada
File:Dendroaspis polylepis by Bill Love.jpg, The black mamba of Africa is one of the most venomous snakes, as well as the fastest-moving snake in the world.
File:Black Widow 11-06.jpg , The black widow spider, or latrodectus
''Latrodectus'' is a broadly distributed genus of spiders with several species that are commonly known as the true widows. This group is composed of those often loosely called black widow spiders, brown widow spiders, and similar spiders. Howeve ...
, The females frequently eat their male partners after mating. The female's venom is at least three times more potent than that of the males, making a male's self-defense bite ineffective.
File:Blackleopard.JPG, A black panther is actually a melanistic leopard or jaguar, the result of an excess of melanin
Melanin (; from el, μέλας, melas, black, dark) is a broad term for a group of natural pigments found in most organisms. Eumelanin is produced through a multistage chemical process known as melanogenesis, where the oxidation of the amino ...
in their skin caused by a recessive
In genetics, dominance is the phenomenon of one variant (allele) of a gene on a chromosome masking or overriding the effect of a different variant of the same gene on the other copy of the chromosome. The first variant is termed dominant and t ...
gene.
Culture
In China, the color black is associated with water, one of the five fundamental elements believed to compose all things; and with winter, cold, and the direction north, usually symbolized by a black tortoise. It is also associated with disorder, including the positive disorder which leads to change and new life. When the first Emperor of China
Qin Shi Huang
Qin Shi Huang (, ; 259–210 BC) was the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of a unified China. Rather than maintain the title of " king" ( ''wáng'') borne by the previous Shang and Zhou rulers, he ruled as the First Empero ...
seized power from the
Zhou Dynasty
The Zhou dynasty ( ; Old Chinese ( B&S): *''tiw'') was a royal dynasty of China that followed the Shang dynasty. Having lasted 789 years, the Zhou dynasty was the longest dynastic regime in Chinese history. The military control of China by ...
, he changed the Imperial color from red to black, saying that black extinguished red. Only when the
Han Dynasty
The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...
appeared in 206 BC was red restored as the imperial color.
![Japanese Wedding Day](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Japanese_Wedding_Day.jpg)
In Japan, black is associated with mystery, the night, the unknown, the supernatural, the invisible and death. Combined with white, it can symbolize intuition. In 10th and 11th century Japan, it was believed that wearing black could bring misfortune. It was worn at court by those who wanted to set themselves apart from the established powers or who had renounced material possessions.
In Japan black can also symbolize experience, as opposed to white, which symbolizes naiveté. The black belt in martial arts symbolizes experience, while a white belt is worn by novices. Japanese men traditionally wear a black kimono with some white decoration on their wedding day.
In Indonesia black is associated with depth, the subterranean world, demons, disaster, and the left hand. When black is combined with white, however, it symbolizes harmony and equilibrium.
Political movements
Anarchism is a political philosophy, most popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which holds that governments and capitalism are harmful and undesirable. The
symbols of anarchism was usually either a black flag or a black letter A. More recently it is usually represented with a bisected red and black flag, to emphasise the movement's socialist roots in the
First International
The International Workingmen's Association (IWA), often called the First International (1864–1876), was an international organisation which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist and anarchist groups and trad ...
. Anarchism was most popular in Spain, France, Italy, Ukraine and Argentina. There were also small but influential movements in the United States and Russia. In the latter, the movement initially allied itself with the Bolsheviks.
[Michael Schmidt and ]Lucien van der Walt
Lucien van der Walt (born 8 September 1972) is a South African writer, professor of Sociology and labour educator. His research engages the anarchist/syndicalist tradition of Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin; trade unionism and working class ...
, '' Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism''. (Oakland and Edinburgh: AK Press
AK Press is a worker-managed, independent publisher and book distributor that specialises in radical left and anarchist literature. Operated out of Chico, California, the company is collectively owned.
History
AK was founded in Stirling, S ...
, 2009), pp. 33–54.
The Black Army was a collection of anarchist military units which fought in the
Russian Civil War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Russian Civil War
, partof = the Russian Revolution and the aftermath of World War I
, image =
, caption = Clockwise from top left:
{{flatlist,
*Soldiers ...
, sometimes on the side of the Bolshevik
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...
, and sometimes for the opposing
White Army
The White Army (russian: Белая армия, Belaya armiya) or White Guard (russian: Бѣлая гвардія/Белая гвардия, Belaya gvardiya, label=none), also referred to as the Whites or White Guardsmen (russian: Бѣлогв ...
. It was officially known as the
Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine
The Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine ( uk, Революційна Повстанська Армія України), also known as the Black Army or as Makhnovtsi ( uk, Махновці), named after their leader Nestor Makhno, was a ...
, and it was under the command of the anarchist
Nestor Makhno
Nestor Ivanovych Makhno, The surname "Makhno" ( uk, Махно́) was itself a corruption of Nestor's father's surname "Mikhnenko" ( uk, Міхненко). ( 1888 – 25 July 1934), also known as Bat'ko Makhno ("Father Makhno"),; According to ...
.
Fascism. The
Blackshirts
The Voluntary Militia for National Security ( it, Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale, MVSN), commonly called the Blackshirts ( it, Camicie Nere, CCNN, singular: ) or (singular: ), was originally the paramilitary wing of the Nation ...
( it, camicie nere, 'CCNN) were
Fascist paramilitary groups in
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
during the period immediately following
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
and until the end of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. The Blackshirts were officially known as the Voluntary Militia for National Security (''Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale'', or MVSN).
Inspired by the black uniforms of the
Arditi
Arditi (from the Italian verb ''ardire'', lit. "to dare", and translates as "The Daring nes) was the name adopted by a Royal Italian Army elite special force of World War I. They and the opposing German '' Stormtroopers'' were the first modern ...
, Italy's elite storm troops of World War I, the Fascist Blackshirts were organized by
Benito Mussolini as the military tool of his political movement.
[Bosworth, R. J. B, ''Mussolini's Italy: Life Under the Fascist Dictatorship, 1915–1945'', Penguin Books, 2005, p. 117.] They used violence and intimidation against Mussolini's opponents. The emblem of the Italian fascists was a black flag with
fasces, an axe in a bundle of sticks, an ancient Roman symbol of authority. Mussolini came to power in 1922 through his
March on Rome
The March on Rome ( it, Marcia su Roma) was an organized mass demonstration and a coup d'état in October 1922 which resulted in Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party (PNF) ascending to power in the Kingdom of Italy. In late October 1922, ...
with the blackshirts.
Black was also adopted by
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
and the
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...
in Germany. Red, white and black were the colors of the flag of the German Empire from 1870 to 1918. In ''
Mein Kampf'', Hitler explained that they were "revered colors expressive of our homage to the glorious past." Hitler also wrote that "the new flag ... should prove effective as a large poster" because "in hundreds of thousands of cases a really striking emblem may be the first cause of awakening interest in a movement." The black
swastika was meant to symbolize the
Aryan race, which, according to the Nazis, "was always anti-Semitic and will always be anti-Semitic." Several designs by a number of different authors were considered, but the one adopted in the end was Hitler's personal design. Black became the color of the uniform of the
SS, the ''Schutzstaffel'' or "defense corps", the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party, and was worn by SS officers from 1932 until the end of World War II.
The Nazis used a
black triangle Black triangle may refer to one of the following:
* Black triangle (badge), a Nazi concentration camp badge worn by inmates deemed "asocial"
** LGBT symbols#Triangle badges of Nazi Germany, Lesbian or feminist symbol reclaimed from the Nazi use
* A ...
to symbolize anti-social elements. The symbol originates from
Nazi concentration camps, where every prisoner had to wear one of the
Nazi concentration camp badges
Nazi concentration camp badges, primarily triangles, were part of the system of identification in German camps. They were used in the concentration camps in the German-occupied countries to identify the reason the prisoners had been placed ther ...
on their jacket, the color of which categorized them according to "their kind". Many Black Triangle prisoners were either mentally disabled or mentally ill. The homeless were also included, as were alcoholics, the
Romani people
The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sig ...
, the habitually "work-shy", prostitutes, draft dodgers and pacifists. More recently the black triangle has been adopted as a symbol in
lesbian culture
LGBT culture is a culture shared by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals. It is sometimes referred to as queer culture (indicating people who are queer), while the term gay culture may be used to mean "LGBT culture" or t ...
and by disabled activists.
Black shirts were also worn by the
British Union of Fascists before World War II, and members of fascist movements in the Netherlands.
Patriotic resistance. The
Lützow Free Corps
Lützow Free Corps ( ) was a volunteer force of the Prussian army during the Napoleonic Wars. It was named after its commander, Ludwig Adolf Wilhelm von Lützow. The Corpsmen were also widely known as the “''Lützower Jäger''“ or “''Schwarz ...
, composed of volunteer German students and academics fighting against
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
in 1813, could not afford to make special uniforms and therefore adopted black, as the only color that could be used to dye their civilian clothing without the original color showing. In 1815 the students began to carry a red, black and gold flag, which they believed (incorrectly) had been the colors of the Holy Roman Empire (the imperial flag had actually been gold and black). In 1848, this banner became the flag of the
German confederation
The German Confederation (german: Deutscher Bund, ) was an association of 39 predominantly German-speaking sovereign states in Central Europe. It was created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as a replacement of the former Holy Roman Empire, w ...
. In 1866,
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...
unified Germany under its rule, and imposed the red, white and black of its own flag, which remained the colors of the German flag until the end of the Second World War. In 1949 the Federal Republic of Germany returned to the original flag and colors of the students and professors of 1815, which is the flag of Germany today.
File:Махновское знамя.svg, A flag used by the anarchist Black Army during the Russian Civil War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Russian Civil War
, partof = the Russian Revolution and the aftermath of World War I
, image =
, caption = Clockwise from top left:
{{flatlist,
*Soldiers ...
. It says, "Power begets parasites. Long live Anarchy!"
File:March on Rome.jpg, Benito Mussolini and his blackshirt
The Voluntary Militia for National Security ( it, Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale, MVSN), commonly called the Blackshirts ( it, Camicie Nere, CCNN, singular: ) or (singular: ), was originally the paramilitary wing of the Nation ...
followers during his March on Rome
The March on Rome ( it, Marcia su Roma) was an organized mass demonstration and a coup d'état in October 1922 which resulted in Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party (PNF) ascending to power in the Kingdom of Italy. In late October 1922, ...
in 1922.
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R99621, Heinrich Himmler.jpg, Black uniform of Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...
, head of the SS, the military wing of the Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
(1938).
Military
![Knoe02 von Reutsch Husaren](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Knoe02_von_Reutsch_Husaren.jpg)
Black has been a traditional color of cavalry and armoured or mechanized troops. German armoured troops (
Panzerwaffe
''Panzerwaffe'', later also ''Panzertruppe'' (German for " Armoured Force", "Armoured Arm" or "Tank Force". ''Waffe'': ombat"arm") refers to a command within the Heer of the German Wehrmacht, responsible for the affairs of panzer (tank) an ...
) traditionally wore black uniforms, and even in others, a
black beret
The black beret is a type of headgear. It is commonly worn by paramilitaries and militaries around the world, particularly armored forces such as the British Army's Royal Tank Regiment (RTR), the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps (RCAC), and Royal A ...
is common. In Finland, black is the symbolic color for both armoured troops and combat engineers, and military units of these specialities have black flags and unit insignia.
The
black beret
The black beret is a type of headgear. It is commonly worn by paramilitaries and militaries around the world, particularly armored forces such as the British Army's Royal Tank Regiment (RTR), the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps (RCAC), and Royal A ...
and the color black is also a symbol of special forces in many countries. Soviet and Russian
OMON
OMON (russian: ОМОН – Отряд Мобильный Особого Назначения , translit = Otryad Mobil'nyy Osobogo Naznacheniya , translation = Special Purpose Mobile Unit, , previously ru , Отряд Милиции Осо ...
special police and
Russian naval infantry
The Russian Naval Infantry (MPR; ), often referred to as Russian Marines in the West, operate as the naval infantry of the Russian Navy. Established in 1705, they are capable of conducting amphibious operations as well as operating as more tradit ...
wear a black beret. A black beret is also worn by military police in the Canadian, Czech, Croatian, Portuguese, Spanish and Serbian armies.
The silver-on-black skull and crossbones symbol or
Totenkopf
''Totenkopf'' (, i.e. ''skull'', literally "dead person's head") is the German word for the skull and crossbones symbol. The "skull and crossbones" symbol is an old international symbol for death, the defiance of death, danger, or the dead, as ...
and a black uniform were used by
Hussars and
Black Brunswickers, the German
Panzerwaffe
''Panzerwaffe'', later also ''Panzertruppe'' (German for " Armoured Force", "Armoured Arm" or "Tank Force". ''Waffe'': ombat"arm") refers to a command within the Heer of the German Wehrmacht, responsible for the affairs of panzer (tank) an ...
and the Nazi
Schutzstaffel
The ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS; also stylized as ''ᛋᛋ'' with Armanen runes; ; "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe duri ...
, and U.S.
400th Missile Squadron
The 400th Missile Squadron is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last assigned to the 90th Operations Group at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming, where it was inactivated in 2005.
The squadron was first activated as the ...
(crossed missiles), and continues in use with the Estonian
Kuperjanov Battalion.
Religion
In
Christian theology, black was the color of the universe before God created light. In many religious cultures, from
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica ...
to
Oceania
Oceania (, , ) is a geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern and Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of and a population of around 44.5 million ...
to India and Japan, the world was created out of a primordial darkness. In the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...
the light of faith and Christianity is often contrasted with the darkness of ignorance and paganism.
![BenedictineVespers](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/BenedictineVespers.jpg)
In Christianity, the
devil
A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of ...
is often called the "prince of darkness". The term was used in
John Milton's poem ''
Paradise Lost'', published in 1667, referring to
Satan, who is viewed as the embodiment of evil. It is an English translation of the Latin phrase ''princeps tenebrarum'', which occurs in the ''
Acts of Pilate
The Acts of the Apostles ( grc-koi, Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; la, Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its messag ...
'', written in the fourth century, in the 11th-century
hymn
A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hy ...
''Rhythmus de die mortis'' by
Pietro Damiani
Peter Damian ( la, Petrus Damianus; it, Pietro or '; – 21 or 22 February 1072 or 1073) was a reforming Benedictine monk and cardinal in the circle of Pope Leo IX. Dante placed him in one of the highest circles of '' Paradiso'' ...
, and in a sermon by
Bernard of Clairvaux
Bernard of Clairvaux, O. Cist. ( la, Bernardus Claraevallensis; 109020 August 1153), venerated as Saint Bernard, was an abbot, mystic, co-founder of the Knights Templars, and a major leader in the reformation of the Benedictine Order throug ...
from the 12th century. The phrase also occurs in ''
King Lear
''King Lear'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare.
It is based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his power and land between two of his daughters. He becomes destitute and insane ...
'' by
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
(c. 1606), Act III, Scene IV, l. 14:
'The prince of darkness is a gentleman."
Priests and pastors of the Roman Catholic,
Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism.
Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or " canonical ...
and
Protestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
churches commonly wear black, as do
monks
A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...
of the
Benedictine Order, who consider it the color of humility and penitence.
* In
Islam, black, along with green, plays an important symbolic role. It is the color of the
Black Standard
The Black Banner or Black Standard ( ar, الراية السوداء, ar-rāyat as-sawdāʾ, also known as (, "banner of the eagle" or simply as , , "the banner") is one of the flags flown by the Islamic prophet Muhammad according to Muslim tr ...
, the banner that is said to have been carried by the soldiers of
Muhammad
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the mo ...
. It is also used as a symbol in
Shi'a Islam (heralding the advent of the
Mahdi
The Mahdi ( ar, ٱلْمَهْدِيّ, al-Mahdī, lit=the Guided) is a messianic figure in Islamic eschatology who is believed to appear at the end of times to rid the world of evil and injustice. He is said to be a descendant of Muhammad w ...
), and the flag of followers of
Islamism and
Jihadism
Jihadism is a neologism which is used in reference to "militant Islamic movements that are perceived as existentially threatening to the West" and "rooted in political Islam."Compare: Appearing earlier in the Pakistani and Indian media, Wes ...
.
* In
Hinduism
Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...
, the goddess
Kali
Kali (; sa, काली, ), also referred to as Mahakali, Bhadrakali, and Kalika ( sa, कालिका), is a Hindu goddess who is considered to be the goddess of ultimate power, time, destruction and change in Shaktism. In this tra ...
, goddess of time and change, is portrayed with black or dark blue skin. wearing a necklace adorned with severed heads and hands. Her name means "The black one". She destroys anger and passion according to Hindu mythology and her devotees are supposed to abstain from meat or intoxication. Kali does not eat meat, but it is the śāstra's injunction that those who are unable to give up meat-eating, they may sacrifice one goat, not cow, one small animal before the goddess Kali, on amāvāsya (new moon) day, night, not day, and they can eat it.
*In
Paganism, black represents dignity, force, stability, and protection. The color is often used to banish and release negative energies, or binding. An
athame
An athame or athamé (, or ) is a ceremonial blade, generally with a black handle. It is the main ritual implement or magical tool among several used in ceremonial magic traditions, and by other neopagans, witchcraft, as well as satanic traditi ...
is a ceremonial blade often having a black handle, which is used in some forms of
witchcraft
Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have ...
.
Sports
* The national
rugby union
Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...
team of New Zealand is called the ''
All Blacks
The New Zealand national rugby union team, commonly known as the All Blacks ( mi, Ōpango), represents New Zealand in men's international rugby union, which is considered the country's national sport. The team won the Rugby World Cup in 1987, ...
'', in reference to their black outfits, and the color is also shared by other New Zealand national teams such as the
Black Caps
The New Zealand national cricket team represents New Zealand in men's international cricket. Named the Black Caps, they played their first Test in 1930 against England in Christchurch, becoming the fifth country to play Test cricket. From 1930 ...
(cricket) and the
Kiwis (rugby league).
*
Association football (soccer) referees traditionally wear all-black uniforms, however nowadays other uniform colors may also be worn.
* In
auto racing
Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition.
Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organise ...
, a
black flag signals a driver to go into the pits.
* In baseball, "the black" refers to the
batter's eye
The batter's eye or batter's eye screen is a solid-colored, usually dark area beyond the center field wall of a baseball stadium, that is the visual backdrop directly in the line of sight of a baseball batter, while facing the pitcher and awai ...
, a blacked out area around the center-field bleachers, painted black to give hitters a decent background for pitched balls.
* A large number of teams have uniforms designed with black colors even when the team does not normally feature that color. Many feel the color sometimes imparts a psychological advantage in its wearers. Black is used by numerous professional and
collegiate sports
College athletics encompasses non-professional, collegiate and university-level competitive sports and games.
World University Games
The first World University Games were held in 1923. There were originally called the ''Union Nationale des ...
teams
Idioms and expressions
![Hebridean ram](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Hebridean_ram.jpg)
* In general, the
Negro
In the English language, ''negro'' is a term historically used to denote persons considered to be of Black African heritage. The word ''negro'' means the color black in both Spanish and in Portuguese, where English took it from. The term can be ...
race (human categorization), race of African origin is called "Black", while the Caucasian race of European origin is called "White".
* In the United States, "Black Friday (shopping), Black Friday" (the day after Thanksgiving Day, the fourth Thursday in November) is traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year. Many Americans are on holiday because of Thanksgiving, and many retailers open earlier and close later than normal, and offer special prices. The day's name originated in Philadelphia sometime before 1961, and originally was used to describe the heavy and disruptive downtown pedestrian and vehicle traffic which would occur on that day.
[Ben Zimmer]
The Origins of "Black Friday,"
''Word Routes'' (November 25, 2011).[Martin L. Apfelbaum, Philadelphia's "Black Friday,"](_blank)
''American Philatelist'', vol. 69, no. 4, p. 239 (January 1966). Later an alternative explanation began to be offered: that "Black Friday" indicates the point in the year that retailers begin to turn a profit, or are "in the black", because of the large volume of sales on that day.
* "In the black" means profitable. Accountants originally used black ink in ledgers to indicate profit, and red ink to indicate a loss.
* List of Black Fridays, Black Friday also refers to any particularly disastrous day on financial markets. The first Black Friday (1869), September 24, 1869, was caused by the efforts of two speculators, Jay Gould and James Fisk (financier), James Fisk, to corner the gold market on the New York Gold Exchange.
* A blacklist is a list of undesirable persons or entities (to be placed on the list is to be "blacklisted").
* Black comedy is a form of comedy dealing with morbid and serious topics. The expression is similar to black humor or black humour.
* A black mark against a person relates to something bad they have done.
* A black mood is a bad one (cf Winston Churchill's clinical depression, which he called "my black dog").
* Black market is used to denote the trade of illegal goods, or alternatively the illegal trade of otherwise legal items at considerably higher prices, e.g. to evade rationing.
* Black propaganda is the use of known falsehoods, partial truths, or masquerades in propaganda to confuse an opponent.
* Blackmail is the act of threatening someone to do something that would hurt them in some way, such as by revealing sensitive information about them, in order to force the threatened party to fulfill certain demands. Ordinarily, such a threat is illegal.
* If the black eight-ball, in billiards, is sunk before all others are out of play, the player loses.
* The black sheep of the family is the ne'er-do-well.
* To Blackball (blacklist), blackball someone is to block their entry into a club or some such institution. In the traditional English gentlemen's club, members vote on the admission of a candidate by secretly placing a white or black ball in a hat. If upon the completion of voting, there was even one black ball amongst the white, the candidate would be denied membership, and he would never know who had "blackballed" him.
* Black tea in the Western culture is known as "crimson tea" in Chinese and Chinese culture, culturally influenced languages (:zh:紅, 紅 :zh:茶, 茶, Standard Chinese, Mandarin Chinese ''hóngchá''; Japanese ''kōcha''; Korean ''hongcha'').
* "The black" is a wildfire suppression term referring to a burned area on a wildfire capable of acting as a safety zone.
* Black coffee refers to coffee without sugar or cream.
Associations and symbolism
Mourning
In the West, black is commonly associated with mourning and bereavement, and usually worn at funerals and memorial services. In some traditional societies, for example in Greece and Italy, some widows wear black for the rest of their lives. In contrast, across much of Africa and parts of Asia like Vietnam, white is a color of mourning.
In Victorian England, the colors and fabrics of mourning were specified in an unofficial mourning dress, dress code: "non-reflective black paramatta and crape for the first year of deepest mourning, followed by nine months of dullish black silk, heavily trimmed with crape, and then three months when crape was discarded. Paramatta was a fabric of combined silk and wool or cotton; crape was a harsh black silk fabric with a crimped appearance produced by heat. Widows were allowed to change into the colors of half-mourning, such as gray and lavender, black and white, for the final six months."
A "black day" (or week or month) usually refers to tragic date. The Ancient Rome, Romans marked ''fasti'' days with white stones and ''nefasti'' days with black. The term is often used to remember massacres. Black months include the Black September in Jordan, when large numbers of Palestinians were killed, and Black July in Sri Lanka, the killing of members of the Tamil people, Tamil population by the Sinhalese people, Sinhalese government.
In the financial world, the term often refers to a dramatic drop in the stock market. For example, the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, which marked the start of the Great Depression, is nicknamed Black Tuesday, and was preceded by Black Thursday, a downturn on October 24 the previous week.
File:The Dowager Electress Palatine in mourning.jpg, Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, The dowager Electress of Palatine in mourning (1717)
File:Pedro II of Brazil and his sisters.jpg, Emperor Pedro II of Brazil and his sisters wearing mourning clothes due to their Pedro I of Brazil, father's death (1834)
File:Queen Victoria by Heinrich von Angeli.jpg, Queen Victoria wore black in mourning for her husband Prince Albert (1899)
Darkness and evil
In western popular culture, black has long been associated with
evil
Evil, in a general sense, is defined as the opposite or absence of good. It can be an extremely broad concept, although in everyday usage it is often more narrowly used to talk about profound wickedness and against common good. It is general ...
and darkness. It is the traditional color of
witchcraft
Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have ...
and black magic.
In the Book of Revelation, the last book in the New Testament of the Bible, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are supposed to announce the Apocalypse before the Last Judgment. The horseman representing famine rides a black horse. The vampire of literature and films, such as Count Dracula of the Bram Stoker novel, dressed in black, and could only move at night. The Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film ''The Wizard of Oz (1939 film), The Wizard of Oz'' became the archetype of witches for generations of children. Whereas witches and sorcerers inspired real fear in the 17th century, in the 21st century children and adults dressed as witches for Halloween parties and parades.
File:Apocalypse vasnetsov.jpg, The biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, including famine riding a black horse (painting by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1887)
File:The Goblins' Christmas, 28.JPG, Drawing of a witch from the illustrated book ''The Goblins' Christmas'' by Elizabeth Anderson (1908)
File:Bela lugosi dracula.jpg, Count Dracula as portrayed by Bela Lugosi in the 1931 film version
File:NOLAHalloween2007CtinaWitchClarinet.jpg, Clarinet-playing witch in a New Orleans Halloween parade
Power, authority and solemnity
Black is frequently used as a color of power, law and authority. In many countries judges and magistrates wear black robes. That custom began in Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries. Jurists, magistrates and certain other court officials in France began to wear long black robes during the reign of Philip IV of France (1285–1314), and in England from the time of Edward I (1271–1307). The custom spread to the cities of Italy at about the same time, between 1300 and 1320. The robes of judges resembled those worn by the clergy, and represented the law and authority of the King, while those of the clergy represented the law of God and authority of the church.
Until the 20th century most police uniforms were black, until they were largely replaced by a less menacing blue in France, the U.S. and other countries. In the United States, police cars are frequently black and white (police vehicle), Black and white. The riot control units of the Basque Autonomous Police in Spain are known as ''beltzak'' ("blacks") after their uniform.
Black today is the most common color for limousines and the official cars of government officials.
Black formal attire is still worn at many solemn occasions or ceremonies, from graduations to formal balls. Graduation gowns are copied from the gowns worn by university professors in the Middle Ages, which in turn were copied from the robes worn by judges and priests, who often taught at the early universities. The mortarboard hat worn by graduates is adapted from a square cap called a biretta worn by Medieval professors and clerics.
File:Supreme Court US 2009.jpg, The United States Supreme Court (2009)
File:ICJ-CJI hearing 1.jpg, Judges at the International Court of Justice in the Hague
File:LAPD Police Car.jpg, A black and white (police vehicle), Black and white police car of the Los Angeles Police Department
File:Jacob1207b.JPG, American academic dress for a bachelor's degree
Functionality
In the 19th and 20th centuries, many machines and devices, large and small, were painted black, to stress their functionality. These included telephones, sewing machines, steamships, railroad locomotives, and automobiles. The Ford Model T, the first mass-produced car, was available only in black from 1914 to 1926. Of means of transportation, only airplanes were rarely ever painted black.
File:Alt Telefon.jpg, Olivetti telephone from the 1940s
File:1920 Ford Model T Centerdoor Sedan 2.jpg, A 1920 Ford Model T
File:Collection of old phones and PDA-BlackBerry.jpg, The first model BlackBerry (2000)
Black house paint is becoming more popular with Sherwin-Williams reporting that the color, Tricorn Black, was the 6th most popular exterior house paint color in Canada and the 12th most popular paint in the United States in 2018.
Ethnography
* The term "black" is often used in the West to describe people whose skin is darker. In the United States, it is particularly used to describe
African Americans. The terms for African Americans have changed over the years, as shown by the categories in the United States Census, taken every ten years.
* In the first U.S. Census, taken in 1790, just four categories were used: Free White males, Free White females, other free persons, and slaves.
* In the 1820 census the new category "colored" was added.
* In the 1850 census, slaves were listed by owner, and a B indicated black, while an M indicated "mulatto".
* In the 1890 census, the categories for race were white, black, mulatto, quadroon (a person one-quarter black); octoroon (a person one-eighth black), Chinese, Japanese, or American Indian.
* In the 1930 census, anyone with any black blood was supposed to be listed as "
Negro
In the English language, ''negro'' is a term historically used to denote persons considered to be of Black African heritage. The word ''negro'' means the color black in both Spanish and in Portuguese, where English took it from. The term can be ...
".
* In the 1970 census, the category "Negro or black" was used for the first time.
* In the 2000 and 2012 census, the category "Black or African-American" was used, defined as "a person having their origin in any of the racial groups in Africa." In the 2012 Census 12.1 percent of Americans identified themselves as Black or African-American.
Black is also commonly used as a racial description in the United Kingdom, since ethnicity was first measured in the 2001 census. The 2011 British census asked residents to describe themselves, and categories offered included Black, African, Caribbean, or Black British. Other possible categories were African British, African Scottish, Caribbean British and Caribbean Scottish. Of the total UK population in 2001, 1.0 percent identified themselves as Black Caribbean, 0.8 percent as Black African, and 0.2 percent as Black (others).
In Canada, census respondents can identify themselves as Black. In the 2006 census, 2.5 percent of the population identified themselves as black.
In Australia, the term black is not used in the census. In the 2006 census, 2.3 percent of Australians identified themselves as Aboriginal Australians, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders.
In Brazil, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) asks people to identify themselves as ''branco'' (white), ''pardo'' (brown), ''preto'' (black), or ''amarelo'' (yellow). In 2008 6.8 percent of the population identified themselves as "preto".
Opposite of white
* Black and white have often been used to describe opposites; particularly light and darkness and good and evil. In Medieval literature, the knight (stock character), white knight usually represented virtue, the
black knight
The black knight is a literary stock character who masks his identity and that of his liege by not displaying heraldry. Black knights are usually portrayed as villainous figures who use this anonymity for misdeeds. They are often contrasted with t ...
something mysterious and sinister. In American westerns, the hero often wore a white hat, the villain a black hat.
* In the original game of chess invented in Persia or India, the colors of the two sides were varied; a 12th-century Iranian chess set in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, has red and green pieces. But when the game was imported into Europe, the colors, corresponding to European culture, usually became black and white.
* Studies have shown that something printed in black letters on white has more authority with readers than any other color of printing.
* In philosophy and arguments, the issue is often described as black-and-white, meaning that the issue at hand is dichotomy, dichotomized (having two clear, opposing sides with no middle ground).
File:Lone ranger silver 1965.JPG, Heroes in American westerns, like the Lone Ranger, traditionally wore a white hat, while the villains wore black hats.
Conspiracy
Black is commonly associated with secrecy.
* The Black Chamber was a term given to an office which secretly opened and read diplomatic mail and broke codes. Queen Elizabeth I had such an office, headed by her Secretary, Sir Francis Walsingham, which successfully broke the Spanish codes and broke up several plots against the Queen. In France a ''cabinet noir'' was established inside the French post office by Louis XIII to open diplomatic mail. It was closed during the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...
but re-opened under Napoleon I. The Habsburg monarchy, Habsburg Empire and Dutch Republic had similar black chambers.
* The United States created a secret peacetime Black Chamber, called the Cipher Bureau, in 1919. It was funded by the State Department and Army and disguised as a commercial company in New York. It successfully broke a number of diplomatic codes, including the code of the Japanese government. It was closed down in 1929 after the State Department withdrew funding, when the new Secretary of State, Henry Stimson, stated that "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail." The Cipher Bureau was the ancestor of the U.S. National Security Agency.
* A ''black project'' is a secret military project, such as Enigma machine, Enigma Decryption during World War II, or a secret counter-narcotics or police sting operation.
* Black ops are covert operations carried out by a government, government agency or military.
* A black budget is a government budget that is allocated for classified or other secret operations of a nation. The black budget is an account expenses and spending related to military research and covert operations. The black budget is mostly classified due to security reasons.
Elegant fashion
Black is the color most commonly associated with elegance in Europe and the United States, followed by silver, gold, and white.
[Eva Heller, ''Psychologie de la couleur, effets et symboliques'', p. 119.]
Black first became a fashionable color for men in Europe in the 17th century, in the courts of Italy and Spain. (See history above.) In the 19th century, it was the fashion for men both in business and for evening wear, in the form of a black coat whose tails came down the knees. In the evening it was the custom of the men to leave the women after dinner to go to a special smoking room to enjoy cigars or cigarettes. This meant that their tailcoats eventually smelled of tobacco. According to the legend, in 1865 Edward VII, then the Prince of Wales, had his tailor make a special short smoking jacket. The smoking jacket then evolved into the dinner jacket. Again according to legend, the first Americans to wear the jacket were members of the Tuxedo Club in New York State. Thereafter the jacket became known as a tuxedo in the U.S. The term "smoking" is still used today in Russia and other countries.
[
Stefano Zuffi, ''Color in Art'', p. 308.]
The tuxedo was always black until the 1930s, when the Duke of Windsor began to wear a tuxedo that was a very dark midnight blue. He did so because a black tuxedo looked greenish in artificial light, while a dark blue tuxedo looked blacker than black itself.
For women's fashion, the defining moment was the invention of the little black dress, simple black dress by
Coco Chanel
Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel ( , ; 19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971) was a French fashion designer and businesswoman. The founder and namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post-World War I era with popularizing a sporty, c ...
in 1926. (See history.) Thereafter, a long black gown was used for formal occasions, while the simple black dress could be used for everything else. The designer Karl Lagerfeld, explaining why black was so popular, said: "Black is the color that goes with everything. If you're wearing black, you're on sure ground."
Skirts have gone up and down and fashions have changed, but the black dress has not lost its position as the essential element of a woman's wardrobe. The fashion designer Christian Dior said, "elegance is a combination of distinction, naturalness, care and simplicity,"
and black exemplified elegance.
The expression "X is the new black" is a reference to the latest trend or fad that is considered a wardrobe basic for the duration of the trend, on the basis that black is always fashionable. The phrase has taken on a life of its own and has become a cliché.
Many performers of both popular and European classical music, including French singers Edith Piaf and
Juliette Gréco
Juliette Gréco (; 7 February 1927 – 23 September 2020) was a French singer and actress. Her best known songs are "Paris Canaille" (1962, originally sung by Léo Ferré), "La Javanaise" (1963, written by Serge Gainsbourg for Gréco) and "Désh ...
, and violinist Joshua Bell have traditionally worn black on stage during performances. A black costume was usually chosen as part of their image or stage persona, or because it did not distract from the music, or sometimes for a political reason. Country-western singer Johnny Cash always wore black on stage. In 1971, Cash wrote the song "Man in Black (song), Man in Black" to explain why he dressed in that color: "We're doing mighty fine I do suppose / In our streak of lightning cars and fancy clothes / But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back / Up front there ought to be a man in black."
File:Anneke Grönloh 1964 Eurovision dress.jpg, A little black dress
The little black dress (LBD) is a black evening or cocktail dress, cut simply and often quite short. Fashion historians ascribe the origins of the little black dress to the 1920s designs of Coco Chanel. It is intended to be long-lasting, versat ...
from 1964
File:The Duke of Windsor (1970).jpg, The Duke of Windsor was the first to wear midnight blue rather than black evening dress, which looked blacker than black in artificial light.
File:Edith Piaf zingt in ons land, Bestanddeelnr 914-6438.jpg, French singer Edith Piaf always wore black on stage.
File:Johnny-Cash 1972.jpg, Country-western singer Johnny Cash called himself "the man in black". Image of his performance in Bremen, Northern Germany, in September 1972.
File:Joshua Bell Indiana University cropped.jpg, American violinist Joshua Bell wears black on stage.
File:Fabiana Semprebom1.jpg, Model Fabiana Semprebom at New York Fashion Week, 2006
See also
* Black Rose (disambiguation)
* Lists of colors
* Rich black, which is different from using black ink alone, in printing.
* Shades of black
References
Notes and citations
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Shades of black,
Shades of gray
Color
Spoken articles
Darkness
Web colors
Cultural aspects of death