The earliest surviving works of Western art made in grisaille were created in the Middle Ages for devotional purposes, to eliminate distractions, and focus the mind. 'Monochrome: Painting in Black and White' guides visitors through seven rooms, each addressing a different aspect of painting in black, white and grey, also known as grisaille: It can be very freeing - without the complexities of working in colour, you can experiment with form, texture, mark making, and symbolic meaning.”
With major loans from around the world, and works from the National Gallery’s Collection, 'Monochrome' reveals fresh insights into the use of colour as a choice rather than a necessity.Īs Lelia Packer and Jennifer Sliwka, curators of 'Monochrome: Painting in Black and White', explain: “Painters reduce their colour palette for many reasons, but mainly as a way of focusing the viewer’s attention on a particular subject, concept or technique. Olafur Eliasson‘s immersive light installation 'Room for one colour' (1997) brings a suitably mind-altering coda to the exhibition. Paintings by Old Masters such as Jan van Eyck, Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres appear alongside works by some of the most exciting contemporary artists working today including Gerhard Richter, Chuck Close, and Bridget Riley.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and workshop, 'Odalisque in Grisaille', about 1824–34 © The Metropolitan Museum of Art / Art Resource / Scala, Florence
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