Is there more to black than the simple play of light upon the eye, or the gathering of soot and earth into pigment? In ancient China, this ink of humble origins gave birth to the Diamond Sutra—the world’s first printed text—yet the color’s power reached far beyond utility. Revered as the “king of colors,” black was worn by emperors, used in ceremony, and honored as the color of the Tao—the dark womb from which thought, story, and spirit were born. The journey of the first printmaking ink - black - reveals an alchemy between earth, spirit, and the human longing to touch the eternal.