Overview
Black (黒 kuro) is the lack of color in light, but in art, it can be used as a color with many meanings. The JIS color standard uses the term black as it is.
In addition to black (黒), the kangxi radical characters for black (玄 xuán), the 95th radical, was used more frequently in ancient times. The kangxi radical character for black is a bundle of black threads, and because it is faint and difficult to see, it was considered to be the color of heaven. According to Wuxing philosophy, of the five elements the color black corresponds to water, others being wood (green), fire (red), earth (blue / yellow), and metal (grey / white). Under Wuxing, water also represents winter in terms of the seasons, sometimes going by its alternate name, xuan winter (玄冬 xuándōng)
