BLACK
Black, the darkest color, is considered as the queen of all colors. It has a wide range of associations and a long history started from neolithic cave paintings.
Black can be linked with power, fear, mystery, strength, authority, elegance, formality, death, evil, aggression and sophistication. Black is the absence of color. It is a mysterious color that is particularly associated with the unknown or the negative. It can be used to evoke strong emotions and too much back can be overwhelming. There are so many phrases and sayings associated with black which represent different meanings. For example, the saying “pitch black” references no light or no visibility, the term “black-heated” describes an evil person; A “black sheep” is an outcast from a family or from society, etc.
As the first black pigment used by artist in prehistory and the first black ink used by book printers, black played an important role in the development of art and literature. Black was one of the first colors used in art. Prehistoric artists mixed charcoal and iron materials to create a black pigment and they used this pigment to paint on cave walls. To take the Lascaux Caves in France as an example. It was painted more than 17000 years ago and it was discovered in 1940. 2000 Paleolithic drawings were found in the cave which represent humans, abstract symbols and animals.
After prehistoric artists, the Greeks developed a technique which allowed pottery artists to paint black silhouettes on clay.
In Latin, the word “Ater” represents black. It is associated with cruelty and evil. “Atrocious” and “Atrocity” are derived from this Latin stem. Besides, the devil was normally painted in black in Medieval paintings.
The true masters of Eastern “ink wash painting” were artists who were able to use only black ink to capture the spirit of a scene. The bests artists used the fewest amount of brushstrokes possible to evoke an atmosphere. Sesshu Toyo, the artist of this Fall landscape, was perhaps the most famous Japanese ink wash painter of all. Although many paintings bear his name, few can be securely attributed to him. This painting, part of a series about the seasons, was inspired by a trip Toyo took to China.
The first printed book in the world, the Gutenberg Bible, featured black type on white paper because the contrast between the two colors was the easiest to read. The mass production of printed books was only possible with the invention of a new kind of printer’s ink, made by mixing soot, turpentine, and walnut oil.
Later, the first computers used green type on a black background, but when researchers found that reading accuracy improved by 26% with the traditional black on white, they made the switch as soon as the technology allowed it.