Prehistoric 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. .
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. 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". 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.
Postclassical In the early Middle Ages, black was commonly associated with darkness and evil. In Medieval paintings, the devil was usually depicted as having human form, but with wings and black skin or hair.
12th and 13th centuries In fashion, black did not have the prestige of red, the color of the nobility. It was worn by
Benedictine 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". 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. 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 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. 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. File:Philip the good.jpg|
Portrait of Philip the Good,
Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1450 File:Petrus Christus - Portrait of a Young Woman - Google Art Project.jpg|
Portrait of a Young Girl,
Petrus Christus, between 1465 and 1470 File:Titian - Portrait of Charles V Seated - WGA22964.jpg|
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor,
Titian, c.1500–1558 File:Portrait of Philip II of Spain by Sofonisba Anguissola - 002b.jpg|Portrait of
Philip II of Spain (1527–1598)
Modern 16th and 17th centuries s have been accused for centuries of being the
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. In some northern European cities, mobs attacked churches and cathedrals, smashed the stained glass windows and defaced the statues and decoration. In Protestant doctrine, clothing was required to be sober, simple and discreet. Bright colors were banished and replaced by blacks, browns and grays; women and children were recommended to wear white. In the Protestant Netherlands,
Rembrandt used this sober new palette of blacks and browns to create portraits whose faces emerged from the shadows expressing the deepest human emotions. The Catholic painters of the Counter-Reformation, like
Rubens, went in the opposite direction; they filled their paintings with bright and rich colors. The new
Baroque churches of the
Counter-Reformation were usually shining white inside and filled with statues, frescoes, marble, gold and colorful paintings, to appeal to the public. But European Catholics of all classes, like Protestants, eventually adopted a sober wardrobe that was mostly black, brown and gray. File:Portrait of Increase Mather, 1688.jpg|
Increase Mather, an American Puritan clergyman (1688). File:Rembrandt van Rijn - Self-Portrait - Google Art Project.jpg|
Rembrandt,
Self-portrait (1659) File:Portrait of John, Duke of Braganza c. 1630 (The Royal Castle in Warsaw).png|John, Duke of Braganza, later King
John IV of Portugal (1628) File:Infantry Armor MET DP277181.jpg|Black painted suit of German armor crafted circa 1600. s 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. 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. Nineteen women and men were hanged as witches.
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'".
Charles Dickens and other writers described the dark streets and smoky skies of London, and they were vividly illustrated in the
wood-engravings of French artist
Gustave Doré. , 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. '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''. 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." 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.
Henri Matisse quoted the French impressionist
Pissarro telling him, "Manet is stronger than us all – he made light with black."
Pierre-Auguste Renoir used luminous blacks, especially in his portraits. When someone told him that black was not a color, Renoir replied: "What makes you think that? Black is the queen of colors. I always detested Prussian blue. I tried to replace black with a mixture of red and blue, I tried using cobalt blue or ultramarine, but I always came back to ivory black."
Vincent van Gogh 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.) File:Carneiro e Gaspar, J. Courtois - Imperatriz Teresa Cristina.jpg|Portrait of Empress
Teresa Cristina of Brazil (circa 1870) File:Whistlers Mother high res.jpg|
Arrangement in Grey and Black Number 1 (1871) by
James McNeill Whistler better known as ''
Whistler's Mother''. File:Edouard Manet - Berthe Morisot With a Bouquet of Violets - Google Art Project.jpg|
Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets, by
Édouard Manet (1872). File:Pierre-Auguste Renoir 023.jpg|
The Theater Box (1874) by
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, captured the luminosity of black fabric in the light.
20th and 21st centuries In the 20th century, black was utilized by Italian and German
fascism. (See the section
political movements). In art, the color 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." 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." 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
Juliette Gréco, and by some members of the
Beat Movement in New York and San Francisco. 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
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;
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." 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. 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 early 1960s until the late 1980s, and the
Black Lives Matter movement in the 2010s and 2020s. It also popularized the slogan "
Black is Beautiful". File:Kazimir Malevich, 1915, Black Suprematic Square, oil on linen canvas, 79.5 x 79.5 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.jpg|
Black Square,
Kazimir Malevich, 1915 File:Constantin Pascali - Regina Maria.jpg|Queen
Marie of Romania, Constantin Pascali, early 1920s File:Lady Amaranth.jpg|The 21st-century
goth fashion model Lady Amaranth, in a style inspired by British
Victorian mourning costumes ==Science==