True black has no hue; it represents the complete absence or absorption of color. It is, to human eyes, the most common thing in the universe, and we have made it a color all its own.

Nothing is older than black in mythological and religious lore. To scientists, it was there, alone, in the incomprehensible non-being that preceded the Big Bang. The primordial Greek deities Nyx (night) and Erebus (darkness) were preceded only by Chaos. The Hindu goddess Kali, worshipped as the “mother of the universe,” takes her name from the Sanskrit word for black. The Abrahamic religions also gave darkness its due. “Let there be light,” said the Lord in the Old Testament, and the primal void was illuminated: “And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.”

Black has...