Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2013/07/09
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On Mon, 8 Jul 2013 Sonny Carter <sonc.hegr at gmail.com>wrote: Subject: Re: [Leica] Thoughts about black and white... >Leonardo da Vinci >? did not have a camera, but he did his paintings in color. His drawings >were often duotones. >You don't often encounter portraits painted in black and white. >I never see flowers in nature that are black and white. ================================================================================================================================================ But there were paintings in monochrome. It's known as grisaille. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia, and the full link. Grisaille >From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Grisaille (/?r??za?/ or /?r??ze?l/; French: gris [??izaj] 'grey') is a term for painting executed entirely in monochrome or near-monochrome, usually in shades of grey. It is particularly used in large decorative schemes in imitation of sculpture. Many grisailles in fact include a slightly wider colour range, like the Andrea del Sarto fresco illustrated. Paintings executed in brown are sometimes referred to by the more specific term brunaille, and paintings executed in green are sometimes called verdaille.[1] A grisaille may be executed for its own sake, as underpainting for an oil painting (in preparation for glazing layers of colour over it), or as a model for an engraver to work from. "Rubens and his school sometimes use monochrome techniques in sketching compositions for engravers."[2] Full colouring of a subject makes many more demands of an artist, and working in grisaille was often chosen as being quicker and cheaper, although the effect was sometimes deliberately chosen for aesthetic reasons. Grisaille paintings resemble the drawings, normally in monochrome, that artists from the Renaissance on were trained to produce; like drawings they can also betray the hand of a less talented assistant more easily than a fully coloured painting. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grisaille> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And I don't feel art has to reproduce nature. I offer a quote from Goethe, during a discussion on a Rubens landscape in which two sources of light can be seen - "The double lighting is definitely a violation - a violation of nature, if you like. But if it is a violation of nature, I add immediately that it is superior to nature. I say that this is a master stroke, and proves that with genius art is not entirely subject to the necessities imposed by nature but has laws of its own." - From Eckerman's "Conversations" 1827. Alan Alan Magayne-Roshak, Senior Photographer University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Photo Services (Retired) UPAA POY 1978 amr3 at uwm.edu http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alan+Magayne-Roshak/ "All the technique in the world doesn't compensate for an inability to notice. " - Elliott Erwitt