This article is about the color black; for other uses, see Black (disambiguation).

Black is a color with several subtle differences in meaning.

Contents

Color or light[edit]

Black
 
About these coordinates     Color coordinates
Hex triplet #000000
sRGBB  (rgb) (0, 0, 0)
CMYKH   (c, m, y, k) (0, 0, 0, 100 †)
HSV       (h, s, v) (-°, -%, 0%)
Source [Unsourced]
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)
H: Normalized to [0–100] (hundred)

Black can be defined as the visual impression experienced in directions from which 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 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 and Primary pigments.

† various CMYK combinations
c m y k
0% 0% 0% 100% (canonical)
100% 100% 100% 0% (ideal inks, theoretical only)
100% 100% 100% 100% (registration black)

Human[edit]

The term black is often used in the West to denote race for persons whose skin color ranges from light to dark shades of brown. For a discussion of usage, see the main entry at Blacks.

Usage, symbolism, colloquial expressions[edit]

In the Western world, black is most often used with a negative connotation. The reasons for this are various, but the most widely accepted explanations are that night is experienced by humans as negative and dangerous. A secondary reason is that stains are most visible as dark additions to pale materials. In traditional class-based cultures "pale" skin indicated genteel domestic or intellectual indoor-work as opposed to rough outdoor labor in the fields. Aspects of this black/white opposition are not unique to the West, as, for example in the Indian varna system. African and African-American writers such as Franz Fanon, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and Ralph Ellison in particular identify a number of negative symbolisms surrounding the word "black", arguing that the good vs. bad dualism associated with white and black provide prejudiced connotations to color metaphors for race.

However, black can have positive symbolism.

Black can also be used in many non-judgmental ways.

black pigments[edit]

See also[edit]