Jun 22

Vocabulary - Grisaille

The colour grey has been used throughout art history. The technique Grisaille relies on it. Here the background and outlines of a painting are composed in grey and white, the colours then applied on top, and the underlayer giving a helpful shading effect. Rembrandt, an expert at mixing a wide variety of greys, used this technique for many of his portraits. Another artist known for his use of grey was James McNeill Whistler, who mixed a very particular grey for the background of his 1871 painting ‘Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1’, best known as Whistler's Mother. Whistler's extensive grey tonal subtleties went on to directly influence the French composer Claude Debussy’s 1899 musical composition ‘Nocturnes’ of which he wrote "an experiment in the different combinations that can be obtained from one colour – what a study in grey would be in painting."
Wikipedia - Grisaille