Darkness, as polar to brightness, is understood to be an absence of visible light. It is also the appearance of black in a color space.
Humans are unable to distinguish color when either light or darkness predominate (W. Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, 1907). In the absence of light, perception is achromatic and ultimately, black.
The emotional response to darkness has metaphorical connotations in many cultures.
Famous quotes containing the word darkness:
“Runs falls rises stumbles on from darkness into darkness
and the darkness thicketed with shapes of terror
and the hunters pursuing and the hounds pursuing
and the night cold and the night long and the river
to cross and the jack-muh-lanterns beckoning beckoning
and blackness ahead”
—Robert Earl Hayden (1913–1980)
“I wrung from the darkness—that the darkness flung me—
Is worthless as ignorance: nothing comes from nothing,
The darkness from the darkness. Pain comes from the darkness
And we call it wisdom. It is pain.”
—Randall Jarrell (1914–1965)
“Let me have wisdom, Beauty, wisdom and passion,
Bread to the soul, rain when the summers parch.
Give me but these, and though the darkness close
Even the night will blossom as the rose.”
—John Masefield (1878–1967)