Color has no meaning until a society assigns one

Pastoureau's foundational claim is that colors do not carry intrinsic psychological or symbolic weight; any meaning attached to black — death, elegance, evil, humility — was constructed by a specific culture at a specific time and then reinforced through repetition in clothing, ritual, and law. He explicitly rejects popular explanations rooted in supposed universal neurobiology, arguing that if black's meaning were hardwired into human perception, it would not have swung so dramatically across different eras and regions.

His method treats color the way an anthropologist treats kinship terms or taboos: as a social system to be mapped through its actual historical uses — dye guild records, sumptuary laws, church texts, heraldic manuals — rather than through introspection about how black "feels." This lets him show black functioning as humble monastic virtue and diabolical menace within the very same century, proof that no single essence underlies the color.

Takeaway: the next time a color feels self-evidently "meaningful," ask which specific historical institution taught you that association, because it likely wasn't always true.