People have been wearing black to show emotion, feelings and moods for years. Some may do it deliberately to give off the effect of how they are, some do it naturally as their emotions just make them want to wear this shade without even thinking. No colour even thought about being added at all.
I personally think the Giovanna Boldini oil painting of Gertrude Elizabeth, Lady Colin Campbell is an example of this, maybe it is, maybe it isn’t but…
Drastic impacts to personal life can cause people’s feelings and emotions change completely. These affects can last forever for some people. The best example of this is the death of a loved one; a friend or family member.
When a person close to you passes away it can cause emotions such as sadness, anger and depression to come out of people, some affected worse than others. Death is a topic that instantly comes to my mind when thinking about ‘Black’. Maybe this is because of funerals as it is the colour people wear when going to them. Sometimes wearing bright colours can be seen as disrespectful, also people want to look smart and black is seen as a to be worn for elegance and authority.
“Here I sit lonely and desolate, who so need love and tenderness” – Queen Victoria.
The loss of Prince Albert had a huge effect on Queen Victoria. Her emotions and personality changed massively due to losing her “dearest dearest Albert”. The impact of his death caused Queen Victoria to wear only black for the rest of her reign, 64 years.
64 years… that’s how much it can affect people. This just shows how much drastic impacts to personal life can cause black to be worn by people more or just be worn completely.
Another drastic impact to personal life is ‘separation’ which is exactly what happened to Gertrude Elizabeth. She married Lord Colin Campbell, younger son of the Duke of Argyll, in 1881 which then lead to their separation in 1886 after a scandalous case where he alleged her adultery with four co-respondents.
Divorce was near impossible in England until the passage of the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857 and Lord Colin Campbell decided to take advantage of this. The scandalous case was won by Gertrude and she obtained a legal separation. Campbell died of pneumonia in 1895. Gertrude could have remarried but she never did, she then died at the age of 53 in the year 1911.
This separation could be the reason of the black dress. It may have caused her to become down and depressed then leading her style to naturally lean towards wearing dark colours and shades of black. The fact she never remarried could be a result of how the separation made her feel, maybe she never wanted to go through it all again, who knows...?
Black… worn to represent death, evil, darkness, bad emotion.
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