Artists have long noted that color can be used in order to cause strong emotional reactions in people. Such artists as Van Gogh, this prompted the creation of masterpieces filled with many colors. However, other artists think differently. They strive to create a masterpiece using only one color.
Definition
Monochrome painting is a work of art written with just one color. In fact, the word "monochrome" literally means "one color." This is a different approach to art, however, it is used much more widely than most people think.
Technics
How is a picture created if only one color is used? The key to this is that, for example, blue and green are different colors, but dark blue and blue are not different; these are only shades of the same color. White can be added to the base color, making it lighter. Theoretically, this can be continued until almost pure white is achieved. At the same time, the color may be darkened by the addition of black. Thus, artists can draw a whole image, consisting of lines, elements and figures in different shades, which are technically a painting in one color.
Why is the monochrome painting technique used
Artists know how deeply color is reflected in human emotions. Monochromatic paintings have become powerful ways to provoke a deep personal experience, further encouraging artists to explore emotions and spirituality through monochrome art.
Artists reduce their color palette for many reasons, but basically this is a way to focus the viewer's attention on a specific subject, concept or technique. Without all the difficulties of working in color, it becomes possible to experiment with form, texture, symbolic meaning.
Monochrome painting in black, white and gray is also called grisaille.
Direction development
The earliest extant works of Western art made in grisaille were created in the Middle Ages. They were designed to eliminate everything that could be distracting and to focus the mind. As color pervades everyday life, black and white can signal a transition to the other world or have a spiritual context.
For some, color was a forbidden fruit and forbidden by religious orders practicing a form of aesthetic asceticism. For example, a grisaille stained glass window was created by Cistercian monks in the 12th century as an alternative to bright church windows, with its translucent grayish panels, with images sometimes painted in black and yellow. Light and elegant in appearance, the glass window grill gained popularity outside the order and eventually became a model in many French churches.
Light and shadow studies
Since the 15th century, artists have painted in black and white to cope with the problems posed by the depicted objects and compositions. Eliminating color allows artists to focus on how light and shadow fall on the surface of a figure, object, or scene before moving on to full-color canvas.
Grisaille paintings
Increasingly, paintings in grisaille began to appear as independent works of art.
Jan Van Eyck's painting “Saint Barbara” (1437, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp) is the earliest known example of monochrome panel work painted with Indian ink and oil.
For centuries, artists have challenged themselves, trying to imitate the appearance of stone sculpture in painting. Northern Europe had a taste for illusory decorative elements such as decorative wall paintings and sculptural plaster. The greatest success in this practice was achieved by the artist Jacob de Wit. His work could easily be mistaken for a three-dimensional relief of the wall.
Abstraction
Abstraction artists often turn to monochrome painting. When artists have access to all possible shades, the lack of color can be all the more shocking or thought-provoking. In 1915, the Kiev artist Kazimir Malevich wrote the first version of his revolutionary work, The Black Square, and announced that this was the beginning of a new kind of unrepresentative art. The works of Joseph Albers, Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella and Cy Tumbley illustrate the use of minimal color for maximum impact.
Artists, intrigued by color theory and the psychological effects of color (or lack thereof), manipulate light, space, and tint to evoke a specific response from the viewer.
Mascara in painting
This type of art allows the artist to create pronounced areas of contrast. In most cases, ink drawing is the application of black ink on a white surface, which leads to the creation of such a contrast. To create the necessary transitions during shading, the method of applying multiple layers is used. Such methods include, for example, various types of hatching.
Monochrome painting of Japan
This type of art came from China. It was in this cultural, philosophical and artistic context that monochrome painting was born.
Of all the arts in China, painting is the most important; it reveals the secret of the universe. It is based on fundamental philosophy, Taoism, which sets out clear concepts of cosmology, the fate of man and the relationship between man and the universe.
Painting is an application of this philosophy, because it penetrates the secrets of the universe.
In traditional Chinese painting, there are four main subjects that are fundamentally the same in Japanese painting: landscapes, portraits, birds and animals, flowers and trees.
In Japan, during the Kamakura era (1192-1333), power was seized by warriors (samurai). In this era, thanks to the pilgrimage of monks to China and their trade there, a large number of paintings were brought to Japan. This fact greatly influenced the artists who worked in the temples, where the work was ordered by patrons and art collectors (shoguns).
Import not only inspired changes in the objects of painting, but also promoted the innovative use of color: Yamato-e (painting on long scrolls of the 9-10th centuries) was replaced by Chinese monochrome technology.
The stunning works of the great Buddhist masters and painters of the Tang and Song dynasties, paintings painted in black Chinese ink in Japan were called suiboku-ga or sumi-e (late 13th century). This style of painting was initially monopolized by Zen Buddhists, and then adopted by monks and artists soaked in this spirit, and for a long time the painting of black ink and paintings of Zen (Zenga) was practically inseparable.
The greatest sumi master of this period is Sesshu Toyo (1420-1506), a monk from Kyoto who studied ink painting in China. Sesshu was the only artist who assimilated the philosophical basis of this kind of painting and embodied it with an original spirit in Japanese themes and artistic language, as well as in relation to spatial representations of Chinese artists of that time.