Why does black feel serious? Why does white feel sophisticated? And why does colour so easily become loud, childish, cheap or unserious?

Our preference for black, white and grey might seem like a matter of taste. But perhaps it is something deeper: a cultural inheritance. A set of associations that has been passed down for centuries and has shaped the way we perceive colour before we even make a conscious decision about it.

The art historian and writer David Batchelor gave this phenomenon a name: In his book Chromophobia, he describes a persistent Western tendency to distrust colour — to associate it with the superficial, the emotional, the ornamental, the irrational or the foreign. Against this, colourless spaces and objects often appear controlled, intellectual and serious. This fear of colour is not necessarily a fear in the literal sense. It is more subtle. It is the feeling that colour needs to be handled carefully. That it can be too much. That it can make something less sophisticated. And perhaps this is why we so often choose black when things get serious.

The myth of white antiquity

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One of the most powerful examples can be found in the way we imagine the ancient world. We have inherited the image of Ancient Greece and Rome as a world of pristine white marble: white temples, white bodies, white sculptures. The image has become almost synonymous with classical beauty itself — rational, timeless, ordered and pure. But the ancient world was not white. Greek and Roman sculptures were often painted in vivid colours. Traces of pigments have survived on many sculptures, revealing a visual culture very different from the monochromatic image we have inherited. The exhibition series GODS IN COLOR makes this discrepancy particularly visible, reconstructing the polychromy of ancient sculpture and confronting us with how radically our perception of antiquity has been shaped by its later interpretation. The so-called myth of white antiquity was reinforced during the Renaissance, when classical art was rediscovered and elevated as an ideal. Its whiteness became part of a larger cultural idea of rationality, order and restraint. In other words, we did not simply lose the colours of antiquity. We turned their absence into an aesthetic ideal.

Falling into colour

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This association between colour and the irrational can also be found in one of the most familiar stories in popular culture. The Wizard of Oz may be one of the most popular stories teaching children that falling into colour is also a fall from grace: Dorothy is swept from her ordinary black-and-white world into the colourful dreamland of Oz.

The transition is visually spectacular, but it also carries a deeper cultural message. The black-and-white world represents the ordinary and familiar. Colour marks the departure from it — into fantasy, emotion and a reality that is less stable. Falling into colour becomes a fall from reality: a seductive descent into dreamland, where we loosen our grip on the rational. Colour is not simply decoration. It can represent a loss of control.

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The black crowd

Perhaps nowhere is this cultural hierarchy more visible today than in the art world. Walk through a contemporary art fair or exhibition opening and you will often encounter an almost uniform visual language: black clothing, muted colours, minimalist interiors, white walls and restrained typography.

Of course, this is partly fashion and partly coincidence. But the persistence of black as the colour of intellectual and cultural authority is difficult to ignore. Black has accumulated centuries of meaning. It has been associated with the Church, the Court, power, discipline and status. Later, the black suit became a symbol of modern male authority and seriousness. Black communicates distance. Knowledge. Control. Sophistication. It does not ask to be noticed. It suggests that the person wearing it already knows.

Colour, by comparison, can appear more exposed. It announces a decision. It reveals preference. It can be playful, emotional, expressive or excessive. And this may be one reason why colour can feel less authoritative: it makes us take a position.

Better safe than sorry

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There is another reason why colour can feel risky — particularly in commercial and global contexts.

Colour carries meaning, but meaning is highly influenced by cultural upbringing. A colour that communicates celebration in one culture can communicate mourning in another. In many East Asian cultures, for example, white is traditionally associated with mourning, while red can represent luck and prosperity. In many Western contexts, white is associated with weddings and purity, while red can suggest danger, passion or warning. The colour itself has not changed. The interpretation has. For a globalised brand, this creates a particular problem. Choosing a strong colour means choosing a meaning — and that meaning may not travel with the product. Black, on the other hand, often feels like the safer choice. It can be formal, neutral and sophisticated without demanding a very specific cultural interpretation. Better safe than sorry. Perhaps this is one of the hidden advantages of neutrality: it reduces the possibility of being misunderstood.

The comfort of neutrality

None of this means that black is inherently more elegant than colour, or that colour is somehow less sophisticated. It means that we have been taught to read them differently. We inherit visual codes long before we become conscious of them. We learn that black belongs to seriousness, white to purity, grey to neutrality — while colour belongs to childhood, celebration, emotion and excess. Even the first visual tools we give children reinforce this distinction. Colour belongs to play. Buntstifte, drawings, bright surfaces and experimentation. Seriousness arrives later, often dressed in black, white and grey. Perhaps this is why our relationship with colour is so complicated. Colour is seductive because it is expressive. But precisely because it is expressive, it is also risky. It carries history, symbolism and cultural baggage. It asks us to decide what something should mean. Black asks less of us. It can disappear into the background while still communicating status. It can appear timeless because its cultural meaning has already been established for us. Maybe, then, our preference for black is not simply a preference for elegance.

Maybe it is a preference for certainty. Because colour demands a position. And taking a position is always more dangerous than staying neutral.