We are in the presence of darkness everyday of our lives and everywhere, but I don’t think anyone has thought about darkness as something they can learn about or elaborate on. I love darkness and I love the night, it gives me a sense of calmness and peace. It’s also very romantic, as all good conversations occur at night, there is something about it that makes you want to open up and be free. Now, before this investigation I did not know there were so many explanations and meanings of darkness, I just assumed that there is a definition for it and that’s it. But darkness is viewed in so many different ways, for example scientific, poetic, artistic, and also cultural. Darkness is defined as a state of lacking visible light. 1) It is proven that complete darkness does not exist and is scientifically impossible because all objects give out heat in the form of infrared light and gamma rays, extremely high frequency of light, can go through even thick materials. I found that very interesting that objects actually give out light. So even in the darkest place, it is not complete darkness. That made me wonder, so can complete darkness occur in other parts of the universe where there are no objects around? Like the black whole. 2) In poetry and literature darkness represents evil, presence of shadow or depression. 3) In many cultures, wearing dark colours is a way of showing grief, like my own culture for instance. 4) I also found it interesting that Satan is referred to as the Prince of Darkness, he is viewed as the king of evil. 5) In art, darkness is used to emphasize light or contrast with light. When we are mixing two colours together, we believe we are creating a new colour or a different colour, yes, that’s true, but in reality we are actually creating darkness, because every colour absorbs certain frequencies of light. When we mix the three primary colours or secondary colours together, it absorbs all the visible light and creates black. Artists use darkness and shadows to add perspective to their art.
