I am not a physicist, but I am trying to maintain the level of my intuition and basic knowledge in physics. Recently I tried to look at thermal radiation and black-body radiation.
After I looked through Wikipedia articles, my intuitive understanding was that thermal radiation and black-body radiation were the same thing in the sense that if there is no incoming radiation to reflect or absorb (lights are off), then any hot object will only emit its thermal radiation like if it was a black body. I thought that black-body radiation is associated with black bodies simply because in black bodies it is easier to observe and to study, because there is no need to separate reflected radiation from thermal radiation in the total outgoing radiation.
Is my understanding wrong? It contradicts the claims I've found in the Internet here and here that the intensity of thermal radiation depends on the object's surface colour. Unless the authors of these claims actually meant to say instead that the intensity at which radiation is absorbed depends on the surface colour, and if more radiation is absorbed, more will eventually be emitted, my intuition fails to see how this is possible.
Will cast iron kitchen stove emit less heat (at the same temperature) if it is painted white (or, rather, covered with thin reflective coating)? This is rather counter-intuitive for me.
If the intensity of thermal radiation really depends not only on the object's temperature but also on its surface colour, I will appreciate any references to where I could read more about the role of surface colour in thermal radiation, and how it works.