Black

This article is about the color. For other uses, see Black (disambiguation).

Black
 

Outer space seen from Mars; Image from the NASA Spirit Rover
    Color coordinates
Hex triplet #000000
sRGBB  (r, g, b) (0, 0, 0)
CMYKH   (c, m, y, k) (0, 0, 0, 100)
HSV       (h, s, v) (–°, –%, 0%)
Source By definition
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)
H: Normalized to [0–100] (hundred)

Black is the darkest color, the result of the absence or complete absorption of light. Like white and grey, it is an achromatic color, literally a color without hue.[1] It is one of the four primary colors in the CMYK color model, along with cyan, yellow, and magenta, used in color printing to produce all the other colors. Black is often used to represent darkness; it is the symbolic opposite of white (or brightness).

Black was one of the first colors used by artists in neolithic cave paintings. In the 14th century, it began to be worn by royalty, the 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.[2]

In the Roman Empire, it became the color of mourning, and over the centuries it was frequently associated with death, evil, witches and magic. According to surveys in Europe and North America, it is the color most commonly associated with mourning, the end, secrets, magic, force, violence, evil, and elegance.[3]

Etymology and language

The word black comes from Old English blæc ("black, dark", also, "ink"), from Proto-Germanic *blakkaz ("burned"), from Proto-Indo-European *bhleg- ("to burn, gleam, shine, flash"), from base *bhel- ("to shine"), related to Old Saxon blak ("ink"), Old High German blach ("black"), 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.[4]

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[5] the English word Negro and the word for "black" in most modern Romance languages (French: noir; Spanish and Portuguese: negro; Italian: nero ).

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.[4]

In heraldry, the word used for the black color is sable,[6] named for the black fur of the sable, an animal.

History and art

Prehistoric history

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 then made more vivid black pigments by burning bones or grinding a powder of manganese oxide.[4]

Ancient history

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, the god of the underworld, who took the form of a black jackal, and offered protection against evil to the dead.

For the ancient Greeks, black was also the color of the underworld, separated from the world of the living by the river Acheron, whose water was black. Those who had committed the worst sins were sent to Tartarus, 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 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 and later 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.[7]

In the social hierarchy of ancient Rome, 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 turned out faded gray or brown.

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".[8]

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.[4]

The German and Scandinavian peoples worshipped their own goddess of the night, Nótt, 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 crow. They believed that Odin, the king of the Nordic pantheon, had two black crows, Huginn and Muninn, who served as his agents, traveling the world for him, watching and listening.[9]

Postclassical history

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.[10]

In the 12th and 13th centuries

In fashion, black did not have the prestige of red, the color of the nobility. It was worn by Benedictine 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, 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".[11]

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.[12]

Black ink, invented in Ancient China and India, 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.[13]

In the 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.[14]

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, younger brother of King Charles VI of France. 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 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.[15]

Modern History

In the 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. Jean Calvin, Melanchton 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.[16] 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.[17]

In the Protestant Netherlands, Rembrandt Van Rijn 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.[18]

In the second part of the 17th century, Europe and America experienced an epidemic of fear of witchcraft. 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 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.[19]

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.[20] Nineteen women and men were hanged as witches.[21]

In the 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'”.[22] 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.

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.

The invention of new, inexpensive synthetic black dyes and the industrialization of the textile industry meant that good-quality black clothes were available for the first time to the general population. In the 19th century gradually black 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 McNeil 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.

Some 19th-century French painters had a low opinion of black: "Reject black," Paul Gauguin said, "and that mix of black and white they call gray. Nothing is black, nothing is gray."[23] But Édouard Manet 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.[24] Henri Matisse quoted the French impressionist Pissarro telling him, "Manet is stronger than us all - he made light with black."[25]

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."[26]

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 political movements.)

In the 20th and 21st centuries

In the 20th century, black was the color of Italian and German fascism. (See political movements.)

In art, black regained some of the territory that it had lost during the 19th century. The Russian painter Kasimir Malevich, a member of the Suprematist movement, created the Black Square 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."[27]

Black was also 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."[28]

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 Greco, and by some members of the Beat Movement in New York and San Francisco.[29] 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, John F. Kennedy 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, 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."[29] 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.[29] 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 Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s was a struggle for the political equality of African Americans. It developed into the Black Power movement in the late 1960s and 1970s, and popularized the slogan "Black is Beautiful".

In the 1990s, the Black Standard became the banner of several Islamic extremist, jihadist groups. (See political movements.)

Science

Optics

In the visible spectrum, white reflects light and is a presence of all colors, but black absorbs light and is an absence of color.

Black can be defined as the visual impression experienced when no visible light reaches the eye. (This makes a contrast with whiteness, the impression of any combination of colors of light that equally stimulates all three types of color-sensitive visual receptors.)

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 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 lack of all colors of light, or an exhaustive combination of multiple colors of pigment. See also primary colors.

In physics, 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 as well.

In elementary science, far ultraviolet light is called "black light" because, while itself unseen, it causes many minerals and other substances to fluoresce.

On January 16, 2008, researchers from Troy, New York's Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute announced the creation of the then darkest material on the planet. The material, which reflected only 0.045 percent of light, was created from carbon nanotubes stood on end. This is 1/30 of the light reflected by the current standard for blackness, and one third the light reflected by the previous record holder for darkest substance.[30] As of February 2016, the current darkest material known is claimed to be Vantablack.[31][32]

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).

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.

  1. ^ "Vantablack, the world’s darkest material, is unveiled by UK firm". South China Morning Post - World. 15 July 2014. Retrieved 19 July 2014. 
  2. ^ "Vantablack: U.K. Firm Shows Off 'World's Darkest Material'". NBCNews.com. 15 July 2014. Retrieved 19 July 2014. 

Chemistry of black pigments, dyes, and inks

Pigments

The earliest pigments used by Neolithic man were charcoal, red ocher and yellow ocher. The black lines of cave art were drawn with the tips of burnt torches made of a wood with resin.[33]

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."[34]

Cennini also noted that "There is another black which is made from burnt almond shells or peaches and this is a perfect, fine black."[34] 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 the walnut, chestnut, 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.[35] 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.[36]

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.[37] 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, a mixture of synthetic black dyes (CI 50415, Solvent black 5) made by heating a mixture of nitrobenzene, aniline and aniline hydrochloride in the presence of a copper or iron catalyst. Its main industrial uses are as a colorant for lacquers and varnishes and in marker-pen inks.[38]

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 ground with water and applied with an ink brush. Early Chinese inks similar to the modern inkstick have been found dating to about 256 BC at the end of the Warring States period. They were produced from soot, usually produced by burning pine wood, mixed with animal glue. To make ink from an inkstick, the stick is continuously ground against an inkstone with a small quantity of water to produce a dark liquid which is then applied with an ink brush. 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.[39]

India ink (or Indian ink in British English) 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, tar, pitch and other substances.[40][41]

The Ancient Romans had a black writing ink they called Atramentum librarium.[42] 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 atrementum elaphantinum, was made by burning the ivory of elephants.[43]

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.

Astronomy

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.

Why the night sky and space are black – Olbers' paradox

The fact that outer space is black is sometimes called Olbers' paradox. In theory, since 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, while the universe is infinitely large, it is not infinitely old. It is thought to be about 15 billion years old, so we can only see objects as far away as the distance light can travel in 15 billion years. Light from stars farther away has not reached Earth, and cannot contribute to making the sky bright. Also, 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.[47]

The daytime sky on Earth is blue because the light from the Sun strikes molecules in Earth's atmosphere and scatters in all directions. Blue light is scattered more than other colors, and reaches the eye in greater quantities, making the daytime sky look 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, 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 no atmosphere to scatter the light, the sky is black both day and night. This also holds true for any other location without an atmosphere.

Biology

  1. ^ "A Murder of Crows". Nature. PBS video. 2010-10-24. Retrieved 6 February 2011. New research indicates that crows are among the brightest animals in the world. 

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. 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.[48]

The Black Army was a collection of anarchist military units which fought in the Russian Civil War, sometimes on the side of the Bolshevik Red Army, and sometimes for the opposing White Army. It was officially known as the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine, and it was under the command of the famous anarchist Nestor Makhno.

Fascism. The Blackshirts (Italian: camicie nere, 'CCNN) were Fascist paramilitary groups in 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.[49] 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 Adolf Hitler and the Nazis 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."[50] Several designs by a number of different authors were considered, but the one adopted in the end was Hitler's personal design.[51] 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 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 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 habitually "work-shy," prostitutes, draft dodgers and pacifists.[52] More recently the black triangle has been adopted as a symbol in 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.[53]

Patriotic Resistance. The Lützow Free Corps, composed of volunteer German students and academics fighting against Napoleon 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. 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.[54]

Islamism. The Black Standard (راية السوداء rāyat al-sawdā' , also known as راية العقاب rāyat al-'uqāb "banner of the eagle" or simply as الراية al-rāya "the banner") is the historical flag flown by Muhammad in Islamic tradition, an eschatological symbol in Shi'a Islam (heralding the advent of the Mahdi),[55] and a symbol used in Islamism and Jihadism.

Selected flags containing black

Religion

In Christianity, the devil 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, written in the fourth century, in the 11th-century hymn Rhythmus de die mortis by Pietro Damiani,[57] and in a sermon by Bernard of Clairvaux[58] 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, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches commonly wear black, as do monks of the Benedictine Order, who consider it the color of humility and penitence.

Sports

Associations and symbolism

Mourning

In Europe and America, black is the color most commonly associated with mourning and bereavement.[62] It is the color traditionally 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 and is worn during funerals.

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."[63]

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

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 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.

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.[64]

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. 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 evening dress 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

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 black beret and the color black is also a symbol of special forces in many countries. Soviet and Russian OMON special police and 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 Totenkopf and a black uniform were used by Hussars and Black Brunswickers, the German Panzerwaffe and the Nazi Schutzstaffel, and U.S. 400th Missile Squadron (crossed missiles), and continues in use with the Estonian Kuperjanov Battalion.

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.[65]

Race and color

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, 1.01 percent identified themselves as Black Caribbean, .8 percent as Black African, and .2 percent as Black (others).[67]

In Canada, census respondents can identify themselves as Black. In the 2006 census, 2.5 percent of the population identified themselves as black.[68]

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 6.84 percent of the population identified themselves as "preto".[69]

Black and white

Black chambers and black ops

Black is commonly associated with secrecy.

Elegance – black and fashion

Black is the color most commonly associated with elegance in Europe and the United States, followed by silver, gold, and white.[71]

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.[72] 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.[71]

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."[71] 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,"[71] 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 Greco, 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."

Asian 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 seized power from the Zhou Dynasty, he changed the Imperial color from red to black, saying that black extinguished red. Only when the Han Dynasty appeared in 206 AD was red restored as the imperial color.[73]

The Chinese and Japanese character for black (kuro in Japanese), can, depending upon the context, also mean dark or evil.

In Japan, black is associated with mystery, the night, the unknown, the supernatural, the invisible and death. Combined with white, it can symbolize intuition.[74]

In Japan in the 10th and 11th century, 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.[75]

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.[76] 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.[77]

Idioms and expressions

Namesake of the idiom "black sheep"

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Black.
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Black

References

Notes and citations

  1. ↑ "Definition of archomatic". Free Dictionary. Retrieved August 30, 2015.
  2. ↑ Heller 2009, pp. 105-126.
  3. ↑ Eva Heller (2000), Psychologie de la couleur - effets et symboliques (p. 105–27).
  4. 1 2 3 4 Michel Pastoureau, Noir - Histoire d'une couleur, p. 34.
  5. ↑ "African nation, named for the river Niger, mentioned by that name 1520s (Leo Africanus), probably an alteration (by influence of Latin niger "black") of a local Tuareg name, egereou n-igereouen, from egereou "big river, sea" + n-igereouen, plural of that word. Translated in Arabic as nahr al-anhur "river of rivers." (Online Etymological Dictionary)
  6. ↑ Friar, Stephen, ed. (1987). "A New Dictionary of Heraldry". London: Alphabooks/A&C Black. pp. 294 and 343. ISBN 0 906670 44 6.
  7. ↑ Stefano Zuffi, Color in Art (p. 270).
  8. ↑ Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, New York: World Publishing Company (1964).
  9. ↑ Michel Pastoureau, Noir - Histoire d'une couleur, pp. 34–45.
  10. ↑ Stefano Zuffi, Color in Art, p. 272.
  11. ↑ Michel Pastoureau, Noir- Histoire d'une couleur, p. 80.
  12. ↑ Michel Pastoureau, Noir - Histoire d'une couleur, pp. 86–90.
  13. ↑ Heller, Eva, Psychologie de la couleur- effets et symboliques (2009), page 126
  14. ↑ Michel Pastoureau, Noir- HIstoire d'une couleur, p. 93–130.
  15. ↑ Michel Pastoureau, Noir- Histoire d'une couleur, pp. 121–25.
  16. ↑ Michel Pastoureau, Noir- Histoire d'une couleur, pp. 146–47.
  17. ↑ Michel Pastoureau, Noir- Histoire d'une couleur, pp. 152–53.
  18. ↑ Michel Pastoureau, Noir- Histoire d'une couleur, pp. 150–51
  19. ↑ Stefano Zuffi, Color in Art, [p. 279).
  20. ↑ Examinations of Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, Tituba. Famous American Trials - Salem Witchcraft trials page
  21. ↑ "More Wonders Of The Invisible World". Salem.lib.virginia.edu. 2006-02-14. Retrieved 2012-11-07.
  22. ↑ Upton, Chris (18 November 2011). "And so it came to pass...". Birmingham Post (Trinity Mirror Midlands). Retrieved 29 February 2016.
  23. ↑ Paul Gauguin, Oviri. Écrits d'un sauvage. Textes choisis (1892–1903). Editions D. Guerin, Paris, 1974, p. 123.
  24. ↑ Steffano Zuffi, Color in Art, p. 302.
  25. ↑ Jack Flam, Matisse on Art, p. 175.
  26. ↑ Eva Heller, Psychologie de la couleur - effets et symboliques, p. 107.
  27. ↑ Cited in Stefano Zuffi, Color in Art, p. 306.
  28. ↑ Jack Flam (1995), Matisse on Art, p. 166.
  29. 1 2 3 Eva Heller, Psychologie de la Couleur- effets et symboliques (p. 120).
  30. ↑ 30 times darker, Darkest ever material created
  31. ↑ Jones, Jonathan (29 February 2016). "Can an artist ever really own a colour?". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 29 February 2016.
  32. ↑ Lee, Linda (5 November 2014). "Gazing Into the Void: What You Can Do With Vantablack, the Darkest Material Ever Made". The New York Times (New York City). Retrieved 29 February 2016.
  33. 1 2 Anne Varichon, Couleurs - pigments et teintures dans les mains des peuples, p. 256.
  34. 1 2 3 Lara Broecke, Cennino Cennini's Il Libro dell'Arte: a New English Translation and Commentary with Italian Transcription, Archetype 2015, p. 60
  35. ↑ Cranshaw, Whitney (2004). Garden Insects of North America. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-09560-4.
  36. ↑ Michel Pastoureau (2008), Noir - Histoire d'une couleur, pp. 112–13.
  37. ↑ "Haematoxylum campechianum". Germplasm Resources Information Network. United States Department of Agriculture. Retrieved 2009-01-27.
  38. ↑ Green F. J. (1990), The Sigma-Aldrich Handbook of Dyes, Stains and Indicators, pp. 513–15. Milwaukee: Aldrich. ISBN 0-941633-22-5
  39. ↑ 蔡, 玫芬, 二、墨的發展史 [Second, the ink history of the development], National Chang-Hua Hall of Social Education
  40. ↑ "India ink." in Encyclopædia Britannica, 2008.
  41. ↑ Gottsegen, Mark (2006). The Painter's Handbook: A Complete Reference. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications. ISBN 0-8230-3496-8.
  42. ↑ William Smith (editor) Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 1870 (text).
  43. ↑ Nicholas Eastaugh, Valentine Walsh, Tracey Chaplin, Ruth Siddall, Pigment Compendium: A Dictionary of Historical Pigments, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2004.
  44. ↑ Wald 1984, pp. 299–300
  45. ↑ Schutz, Bernard F. (2003). Gravity from the ground up. Cambridge University Press. p. 110. ISBN 0-521-45506-5.
  46. ↑ Davies, P. C. W. (1978). "Thermodynamics of Black Holes" (PDF). Reports on Progress in Physics 41 (8): 1313–1355. Bibcode:1978RPPh...41.1313D. doi:10.1088/0034-4885/41/8/004.
  47. ↑ The StarChild site of the NASA High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center
  48. ↑ Michael Schmidt and Lucien van der Walt, Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism. (Oakland and Edinburgh: AK Press, 2009), pp. 33-54.
  49. ↑ Bosworth, R. J. B, Mussolini's Italy: Life Under the Fascist Dictatorship, 1915–1945, Penguin Books, 2005, p. 117.
  50. ↑ "Nazi propaganda pamphlet "The Life of the Führer"". Calvin.edu. Retrieved 2012-09-08.
  51. ↑ Hitler, Adolf (1926). Mein Kampf, volume 2, chapter VII.
  52. ↑ The unsettled, "asocials", alcoholics and prostitutes. Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies. University of Minnesota. Retrieved September 14, 2012.
  53. ↑ Eva Heller (2000), Psychologie de la Couleur - effets et symboliques, p. 123.
  54. ↑ Eva Heller (2000) Psychologie de la Couleur - effets et symboliques, pp. 124–25.
  55. ↑ David Cook (2002). Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic. Darwin Press. p. 197. from Majlisi.
  56. ↑ Stefano Zuppi, Color in Art, pp. 268–69.
  57. ↑ "Petrus Damiani: Opera poetica Pag 89". Uan.it. 2005-10-19. Retrieved 2012-11-07.
  58. ↑ ""Sermones in Cantica canticorum, I - XVII" - Bernardus Claraevallensis". Binetti.ru. Retrieved 2012-11-07.
  59. ↑ "Goddess Kali never accepts nonvegetarian food because she is the chaste wife of Lord Siva". Vani Quotes. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
  60. ↑ "Kali FAQ". Retrieved 7 December 2014.
  61. ↑ Stefano Zuffi, Color in Art' (p. 275).
  62. ↑ Eva Heller, Psychologie de la couleur - effets et symboliques, p. 109. In the survey cited, 80 percent of respondents said black was the color of mourning.
  63. ↑ Patricia Jalland, Death in the Victorian Family, p. 300.
  64. ↑ Michel Pastoureau, Noir - histoire d'une couleur (pp. 114–15).
  65. ↑ Eva Heller, Psychologie de la couleur - effets et symboliques (p. 226).
  66. ↑ "Through the Decades". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved 2012-01-18.
  67. ↑ "The Classification of Ethnic Groups". National Statistics. 2001-02-16. Archived from the original on 2007-04-06. Retrieved 2007-04-20.
  68. ↑ 2006 Canadian census, ethnicity
  69. ↑ IBGE. 2008 PNAD. População residente por cor ou raça, situação e sexo.
  70. ↑ "Pre-1952 Historical Timeline". National Security Agency. Retrieved May 30, 2011.
  71. 1 2 3 4 Eva Heller, Psychologie de la couleur, effets et symboliques, 119.
  72. ↑ Stefano Zuffi, Color in Art (p. 308).
  73. ↑ Anne Varichon, Couleurs- pigments et teintures dans les mains des peuples, p. 223–224.
  74. ↑ Exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum on color in Japanese art and design,
  75. ↑ Anne Varichon, p. 224.
  76. ↑ Webexhibits Pigments through the ages
  77. ↑ Anne Varichon, pg. 224–225
  78. 1 2 Ben Zimmer, The Origins of "Black Friday," Word Routes (November 25, 2011).
  79. ↑ Martin L. Apfelbaum, Philadelphia's "Black Friday," American Philatelist, vol. 69, no. 4, p. 239 (January 1966).
  80. ↑ Kevin Drum (November 26, 2010). "Black Friday".
  81. ↑ Haralson, Hal. "Dancing with the Black Dog". christianethicstoday.com. Retrieved November 10, 2006.

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