grisaille

grisaille, painting technique by which an image is executed entirely in shades of gray and usually severely modeled to create the illusion of sculpture, especially relief. This aspect of grisaille was used particularly by the 15th-century Flemish painters (as in the outer wings of the van Eycks’ Ghent Altarpiece) and in the late 18th century to imitate classical sculpture in wall and ceiling decoration. Among glass painters, grisaille is the name of a gray, vitreous pigment used in the art of colouring glass for stained glass. In French, grisaille has also come to mean any painting technique in which translucent oil colours are laid over a monotone underpainting.

In the grisaille enamel painting technique, pulverized white vitreous enamel is made into a paste by mixing it with water, turpentine, oil of lavender, or petroleum oil and is then applied to a dark enamel ground, usually coloured black or blue. Lighter areas of the design are thickly painted, while the gray areas are obtained by painting with thinner coats to allow the dark background colour to tone the white enamel pigment. This technique achieves a dramatic effect of light and shade and a pronounced sense of three-dimensionality. Grisaille enamels were developed in the 16th century in France by the Limoges school of enamelers. Among the most noted practitioners of this technique were members of the Pénicaud family. The technique was also popular with some 20th-century painters, including Alfred Leslie and Chuck Close.