monochrome painting

In art, painting in grey or neutral tones, also called grisaille. Monochrome has two basic uses in painting: to provide the foundation (underpainting) and to create three-dimensional effects.

Monochrome was once widely used in underpainting, the artist solving problems of drawing and tone before applying the final colour, which was sometimes painted over the monochrome in several thin, transparent layers. Early Italian painters, for example, used green-earth pigment (verdaccio) on a white gesso ground. Rubens used the same technique using brown-earth with white highlights on a white ground toned down with pearly grey.

Monochrome has also been used to create the illusion of carving, especially in paintings that have an architectural setting. Early examples are figures by Jan van Eyck on the outer panel of the Ghent altarpiece, and the feigned full-reliefs by Mantegna, for example in his Introduction to the Cult of the Cybele at Rome 1505–06 (National Gallery, London). Feigned marble caryatids offset natural-coloured figures in the ceiling by Annibale Caracci in the Farnese Palace, Rome. Baroque and rococo decorators made much of this treatment, often for swags and other decorations.