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Black is a

figuratively to represent darkness.[3] In Western society, black and white have often been used to describe opposites such as good and evil, the Dark Ages versus Age of Enlightenment, and night versus day. In Western society, since the Middle Ages, black has been the symbolic color of solemnity and authority, and for this reason it is still commonly worn by judges and magistrates.[3]

Black was one of the first colors used by artists in Neolithic cave paintings.[4] It was used in ancient Egypt and Greece as the color of the underworld.[5] In Ancient Egypt, black had positive associations; being the color of fertility and the rich black soil flooded by the Nile. In the Roman Empire, it became the color of mourning, and over the centuries it was frequently associated with death, evil, witches, and magic.[6] 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.[3] 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.[7]

Black is the most common

carbon nanotubes.[9]

Etymology

The word black comes from

Old Norse blakkr ("dark"), Dutch blaken ("to burn"), and Swedish bläck ("ink"). More distant cognates include Latin flagrare ("to blaze, glow, burn"), and Ancient Greek 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.[10] 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,[11] the English word Negro, and the word for "black" in most modern Romance languages (French: noir; Spanish and Portuguese: negro; Italian: nero; Romanian
: negru).

Old High German also had two words for black: swartz for dull black and blach for a luminous black. These are parallelled in Middle 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.[10] The former is cognate with the words used for black in most modern Germanic languages aside from English (German: schwarz, Dutch: zwart, Swedish: svart, Danish: sort, Icelandic: svartr).[12] In heraldry, the word used for the black color is sable,[13] named for the black fur of the sable, an animal.

Art

Prehistoric

Megaloceros cave art at Lascaux

Black was one of the first colors used in art. The

Lascaux Cave 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.[10]

Ancient

Statue of Anubis, guardian of the underworld, from the tomb of Tutankhamun

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

red figure pottery, using a highly original technique. In black-figure pottery, the artist would paint figures with a glossy clay slip 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.[14]

Greek black-figure pottery. Ajax and Achilles playing a game, about 540–530 BC. Vatican Museums

In the social hierarchy of ancient Rome, purple was 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.[15]

In Latin, 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".[16] For the Romans, black symbolized death and mourning. In the 2nd century BC Roman magistrates wore 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.[10]

The German and Scandinavian peoples worshipped their own goddess of the night,

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.[17]

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.[18]

12th and 13th centuries

In fashion, black did not have the prestige of red, the color of the nobility. It was worn by

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, 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".[19]

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 in the poetry of the Middle Ages was an enigmatic figure, hiding his identity, usually wrapped in secrecy.[20]

Black ink, 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. A new kind of ink, printer's ink, was created out of soot, turpentine and walnut oil. 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.[8]

  • The Italian painter Duccio di Buoninsegna showed Christ expelling the Devil, shown covered with bristly black hair (1308–11).
    The Italian painter
    Christ expelling the Devil
    , shown covered with bristly black hair (1308–11).
  • The 15th-century painting of the Last Judgement by Fra Angelico (1395–1455) depicted hell with a vivid black devil devouring sinners.
    The 15th-century painting of the Last Judgement by Fra Angelico (1395–1455) depicted hell with a vivid black devil devouring sinners.
  • Portrait of a monk of the Benedictine Order (1484)
    Portrait of a monk of the
    Benedictine Order
    (1484)
  • The black knight in a miniature painting of a medieval romance,Le Livre du cœur d'amour épris (about 1460)
    The black knight in a miniature painting of a medieval romance,Le Livre du cœur d'amour épris (about 1460)
  • Gutenberg Bible (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.
    Gutenberg Bible (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 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 and the peacock blue fabrics from Florence 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.[21]

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

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 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.[22]

Modern

16th and 17th centuries

familiar spirits
of witches or of bringing bad luck.

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 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.[23] 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.[24]

In the Protestant Netherlands,

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.[25]

familiar spirits

In the second part of the 17th century, Europe and America experienced an epidemic of fear of

familiar spirits, 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, in a ceremony called Kattenstoet, black cats were thrown from the belfry of the Cloth Hall of Ypres to ward off witchcraft.[27]

Witch trials were common in both Europe and America during this period. During the notorious Salem witch trials 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.[28] Nineteen women and men were hanged as witches.[29]

18th and 19th centuries

In the 18th century, during the European Age of Enlightenment, 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, 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, the buildings of the large cities of Europe and America gradually turned black. By 1846 the industrial area of the West Midlands of England was "commonly called 'the Black Country'”.[30] Charles Dickens 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.

American Pilgrims in New England going to church, George Henry Boughton, 1867

A different kind of black was an important part of the

romantic movement 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.

Wheat Field with Crows (1890), one of Vincent van Gogh's last paintings

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.[31]

Some 19th-century French painters had a low opinion of black: "Reject black,"

Pissarro telling him, "Manet is stronger than us all – he made light with black."[34]

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."[35]

Vincent van Gogh 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.)

20th and 21st centuries

In the 20th century, black was utilised by Italian and German

Black Square in 1915, is widely considered the first purely abstract painting.[36] 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."[37]

Black was appreciated by Henri Matisse. "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."[38]

In the 1950s, black came to be a symbol of individuality and intellectual and social rebellion, the color of those who did not accept established norms and values. In Paris, it was worn by Left-Bank intellectuals and performers such as

Beat Movement in New York and San Francisco.[39] Black leather jackets were worn by motorcycle gangs such as the Hells Angels 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, with Marlon Brando. By the end of the 20th century, black was the emblematic color of the punk subculture punk fashion, and the goth subculture. Goth fashion, which emerged in England in the 1980s, was inspired by Victorian era
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,

Lyndon Johnson
and his successors were inaugurated wearing business suits.

Women's fashion was revolutionized and simplified in 1926 by the French designer Coco Chanel, 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."[39] French designer Jean Patou also followed suit by creating a black collection in 1929.[40] Other designers contributed to the trend of the little black dress. The Italian designer Gianni Versace 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.[39] One of the most famous black dresses of the century was designed by Hubert de Givenchy and was worn by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's.

The American

Black is Beautiful
".

Science

Physics

In the

visible light reaches the eye. Pigments 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 wavelengths of visible light. 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 color produced by the absorption of all wavelengths of visible light, or an exhaustive combination of multiple colors of pigment.

Vantablack was the blackest substance known until 2019.[41][9]

In physics, a

black light" because, while itself unseen, it causes many minerals and other substances to fluoresce
.

Absorption of light is contrasted by transmission, reflection and diffusion, 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 the visible spectrum) interacts with the atoms and molecules, 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).

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.[9] This surpasses any former darkest materials including Vantablack, which has a peak absorption rate of 99.965% in the visible spectrum.[42]

Chemistry

Pigments

The earliest pigments used by Neolithic man were

yellow ocher. The black lines of cave art were drawn with the tips of burnt torches made of a wood with resin.[43]
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.

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."[44]

Cennini also noted that "There is another black which is made from burnt almond shells or peaches and this is a perfect, fine black."[44] Similar fine blacks were made by burning the pits of the peach, cherry or apricot. The powdered charcoal was then mixed with gum arabic or the yellow of an egg to make a paint.

Different civilizations burned different plants to produce their charcoal pigments. The Inuit of Alaska used wood charcoal mixed with the blood of seals to paint masks and wooden objects. The Polynesians burned coconuts to produce their pigment.

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 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 in the family Cynipidae.[45] 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.[46]

Another important source of natural black dyes from the 17th century onwards was the

logwood tree, or Haematoxylum campechianum, which also produced reddish and bluish dyes. It is a species of flowering tree in the legume family, Fabaceae, that is native to southern Mexico and northern Central America.[47]
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

catalyst. Its main industrial uses are as a colorant for lacquers and varnishes and in marker-pen inks.[48]

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

masi. In India, the black color of the ink came from bone char, tar, pitch and other substances.[50][51]

The ancient Romans had a black writing ink they called atramentum librarium.[52] 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.[53]

Gall-nuts were also used for making fine black writing ink. Iron gall ink (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 acids 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.

  • Sticks of vine charcoal and compressed charcoal. Charcoal, along with red and yellow ochre, was one of the first pigments used by Paleolithic man.
    Sticks of vine charcoal and compressed charcoal. Charcoal, along with red and yellow ochre, was one of the first pigments used by Paleolithic man.
  • A Chinese inkstick, in the form of lotus flowers and blossoms. Inksticks are used in Chinese calligraphy and brush painting.
    A Chinese inkstick, in the form of lotus flowers and blossoms. Inksticks are used in Chinese calligraphy and brush painting.
  • Ivory black or bone char, a natural black pigment made by burning animal bones.
    Ivory black or bone char, a natural black pigment made by burning animal bones.
  • The oak apple 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.
    The oak apple 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.
  • The industrial production of lamp black, made by producing, collecting and refining soot, in 1906.
    The industrial production of
    lamp black
    , made by producing, collecting and refining soot, in 1906.

Astronomy

  • A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity prevents anything, including light, from escaping.[54] The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined boundary called an event horizon 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 in thermodynamics.[55][56] 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 holes 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.
  • Image of the NGC 406 galaxy from the Hubble Space Telescope
    Image of the NGC 406 galaxy from the Hubble Space Telescope
  • The night sky seen from Mars, with the two moons of Mars visible, taken by the NASA Spirit Rover.
    The night sky seen from Mars, with the two moons of Mars visible, taken by the NASA Spirit Rover.
  • Outside Earth's atmosphere, the sky is black day and night.
    Outside Earth's atmosphere, the sky is black day and night.
  • An illustration of Olbers' paradox (see below)
    An illustration of
    Olbers' paradox
    (see below)
  • Image of the central black hole of Messier 87 taken by the Event Horizon Telescope.
    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

Olbers' paradox. 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
, 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.[57]

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.

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

  • The American crow is one of the most intelligent of all animals.[58]
    The American crow is one of the most intelligent of all animals.[58]
  • American black bear (Ursus americanus) near Riding Mountain Park, Manitoba, Canada
    American black bear (Ursus americanus) near Riding Mountain Park, Manitoba, Canada
  • The black mamba of Africa is one of the most venomous snakes, as well as the fastest-moving snake in the world.
    The black mamba of Africa is one of the most venomous snakes, as well as the fastest-moving snake in the world.
  • The black widow spider, or latrodectus, 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.
    The black widow spider, or latrodectus, 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.
  • A black panther is actually a melanistic leopard or jaguar, the result of an excess of melanin in their skin caused by a recessive gene.
    A
    recessive
    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

Han Dynasty appeared in 206 BC was red restored as the imperial color.[59]

Japanese men traditionally wear a black kimono with some white decoration on their wedding day

In Japan, black is associated with mystery, the night, the unknown, the supernatural, the invisible and death. Combined with white, it can symbolize intuition.[60] 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.[61]

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.[62] Japanese men traditionally wear a black kimono with some white decoration on their wedding day.

Black is associated with depth in Indonesia, as well as the subterranean world, demons, disaster, and the left hand. When combined with white, however, it symbolizes harmony and equilibrium.[63]

Political movements

Anarchism

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. Anarchism was most popular in Spain, France, Italy, Ukraine and Argentina. There were also small but influential movements in the United States, Russia and many other countries all around the world.[64]

Fascism

The

Italy during the period immediately following World War I and until the end of World War II
. 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, 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.[65] 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 with the blackshirts.

Black was also adopted by

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

lesbian culture
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.[69]

Patriotic resistance

The

German confederation. In 1866, Prussia 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.[70]

Military

Hussar from Husaren-Regiment Nr.5 (von Ruesch) in 1744 with the Totenkopf on the mirliton (ger. Flügelmütze).

Black has been a traditional color of cavalry and armoured or mechanized troops. German armoured troops (Panzerwaffe) traditionally wore black uniforms, and even in others, a black beret 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

Russian naval infantry
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

Kuperjanov Battalion
.

Religion

In Christian theology, black was the color of the universe before God created light. In many religious cultures, from Mesoamerica to Oceania to India and Japan, the world was created out of a primordial darkness.[71] In the Bible the light of faith and Christianity is often contrasted with the darkness of ignorance and paganism.

Order of Saint Benedict
in New Jersey

In Christianity, the

Pietro Damiani,[72] and in a sermon by Bernard of Clairvaux[73] from the 12th century. The phrase also occurs in King Lear by William Shakespeare
(c. 1606), Act III, Scene IV, l. 14: 'The prince of darkness is a gentleman."

Priests and pastors of the Roman Catholic,

Benedictine Order
, who consider it the color of humility and penitence.

  • In
    Shi'a Islam (heralding the advent of the Mahdi), and the flag of followers of Islamism and Jihadism
    .
  • In Hinduism, the goddess Kali, 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.[74][75][76] 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,[77] or binding. An athame is a ceremonial blade often having a black handle, which is used in some forms of witchcraft.[78]

Sports

  • The national
    Kiwis
    (rugby league).
  • Association football (soccer) referees traditionally wear all-black uniforms, however nowadays other uniform colors may also be worn.
  • In auto racing, a black flag signals a driver to go into the pits.
  • In baseball, "the black" refers to the batter's eye, 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
    teams

Idioms and expressions

Namesake of the idiom "black sheep"

Associations and symbolism

Mourning

In the West, black is commonly associated with mourning and bereavement,[83][6] 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

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."[84]

A "black day" (or week or month) usually refers to tragic date. The

Tamil population by the 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.

Darkness and evil

In western popular culture, black has long been associated with evil and darkness. It is the traditional color of witchcraft and black magic.[6]

In the

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.

  • Drawing of a witch from the illustrated book The Goblins' Christmas by Elizabeth Anderson (1908)
    Drawing of a witch from the illustrated book The Goblins' Christmas by Elizabeth Anderson (1908)
  • Clarinet-playing witch in a New Orleans Halloween parade
    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

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.[86]

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

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.

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.[87]

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.[88]

Ethnography

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).[90]

In Canada, census respondents can identify themselves as Black. In the 2006 census, 2.5 percent of the population identified themselves as black.[91]

In Australia, the term black is not used in the census. In the 2006 census, 2.3 percent of Australians identified themselves as 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".[92]

Opposite of white

westerns, like the Lone Ranger
, traditionally wore a white hat, while the villains wore black hats.

Conspiracy

Black is commonly associated with secrecy.

Elegant fashion

Black is the color most commonly associated with elegance in Europe and the United States, followed by silver, gold, and white.[94]

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

tuxedo in the U.S. The term "smoking" is still used today in Russia and other countries.[95]
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.[94]

For women's fashion, the defining moment was the invention of the simple black dress by Coco Chanel 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."[94] 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,"[94] 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

Edith Piaf and Juliette Gréco, 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
" 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."

  • A little black dress from 1964
    A little black dress from 1964
  • The Duke of Windsor was the first to wear midnight blue rather than black evening dress, which looked blacker than black in artificial light.
    The Duke of Windsor was the first to wear midnight blue rather than black evening dress, which looked blacker than black in artificial light.
  • French singer Edith Piaf always wore black on stage.
    French singer
    Edith Piaf
    always wore black on stage.
  • Country-western singer Johnny Cash called himself "the man in black". Image of his performance in Bremen, Northern Germany, in September 1972.
    Country-western singer Johnny Cash called himself "the man in black". Image of his performance in Bremen, Northern Germany, in September 1972.
  • Model Fabiana Semprebom at New York Fashion Week, 2006
    Model Fabiana Semprebom at New York Fashion Week, 2006

See also

References

Notes and citations

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Bibliography