White is an achromatic color, a color without hue*. An
incoming light to the human eye that stimulates all its three types of color
sensitive cone cells in nearly equal amounts results in white. White is one of
the most common colors in nature, the color of sunlight, snow, milk, chalk,
limestone and other common minerals. In many cultures white represents or
signifies purity, innocence, and light, and is the symbolic opposite of black,
or darkness. According to surveys in Europe and the United States, white is the
color most often associated with perfection, the good, honesty, cleanliness,
the beginning, the new, neutrality, and exactitude.
In ancient Egypt and ancient Rome, priestesses wore white
as a symbol of purity, and Romans wore a white toga as a symbol of citizenship.
In the Middle Ages and Renaissance a white unicorn symbolized chastity, and a
white lamb sacrifice and purity; the widows of kings dressed in white rather
than black as the color of mourning. It sometimes symbolizes royalty; it was
the color of the French kings (black being the color of the queens) and of the
monarchist movement after the French Revolution as well as of the movement
called the White Russians (not to be confounded with Belarus, literally
"White Russia") who fought the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil
War (1917–1922). Greek and Roman temples were faced with white marble, and
beginning in the 18th century, with the advent of neoclassical architecture,
white became the most common color of new churches, capitols and other
government buildings, especially in the United States. It was also widely used
in 20th century modern architecture as a symbol of modernity, simplicity and
strength.
White is an important color for almost all world
religions. The Pope, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, has worn white
since 1566, as a symbol of purity and sacrifice. In Islam, and in the Shinto
religion of Japan, it is worn by pilgrims; and by the Brahmins in India. In
Western cultures and in Japan, white is the most common color for wedding
dresses, symbolizing purity and virginity. In many Asian cultures, white is
also the color of mourning.
The white color on television screens and computer
monitors is created with the RGB color model by mixing red, green and blue
light at equal intensities.
* Hue is one of the main properties (called color
appearance parameters) of a color, defined technically, as "the degree to
which a stimulus can be described as similar to or different from stimuli that
are described as red, green, blue, and yellow" (the unique hues). Orange
and violet (purple) are the other hues, for a total of six, as in the rainbow:
red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. The other color appearance parameters
are colorfulness, chroma, saturation, lightness, and brightness.
- Hue — another word for color
- Saturation (chroma) — the intensity or purity of a hue
- Lightness (value) — the relative degree of black or white mixed with a given hue
- Temperature — the perceived warmth or coolness of a color
