Monochrome is a starved and lifeless term to express the marvellous range and subtlety of tones of which the preparation of black soot known as Chinese ink is capable.
Wang Wei seems to have treated monochromemainly from the standpoint of chiaroscuro, in his search for an atmospheric perspective which should be both fluid and ethereal.
Considered as the founder of the Southern School and the originator of monochrome painting in Chinese ink.
On the other hand, the studies of the Sung period had not been fruitless; therefore when, under these influences, the use of color was resumed, the painters profited by what the practice of monochrome had taught meanwhile.
He used strong inking in a style in which the simplification of monochrome is carried to the extreme.
From this to monochrome painting in Chinese ink is but a step; historical testimony shows that Wang Wei took this step.
Thence came the early tendency to use monochrome and to represent forms in the abstract, rendering them more and more as mere themes, thus reducing the subject to a few simple calligraphic strokes.
At the hands of the Sung painters the school of landscape and monochrome technique attained a level which will never be exceeded.
He used the technique of monochrome almost exclusively, and so closely related tone values to the line, or rather to the brush-stroke, that it is difficult to decide whether he paints rather than draws, or draws rather than paints.
It closes with the introduction of incised, white-filled decoration on pottery, whose motives are presently found reproduced in monochrome pigment.
The term is also applied to monochrome painting in enamels, and also to stained glass; a fine example of grisaille glass is in the window known as the Five Sisters, at the end of the north transept in York cathedral.
A photograph taken from the painting by Mr. Annan was worked up in monochrome by the eminent artist, from which another negative was taken by the same skilful photographer, and placed in the hands of Mr. J.
The total mastery of brushwork and the ink line gave the monochrome artists a foundation of absolute technical achievement, and the Zen calligrapher-poets a tradition of spontaneity in keeping with Zen ideals.
But the most exalted poetry of the age was that written for the No drama, a literary art form born of Zen and at once as austere as a stone garden and as suggestive as a monochrome painting.
The third type of painting associated with Ch'an is the monochrome landscape.
The paintings of Mu-ch'i, the first Chinese monochrome art to be seen in Japan, were an instant success, and Zen monks rapidly took up the style.
Monochrome painting, which began in China as a logical extension of brush calligraphy, came to be the ultimate medium for the transmission of Japanese Zen.
The eccentric monks who invented koan paradoxes also seem to have been fond of calligraphy and monochrome painting.
Perhaps the best example of this type of monochrome "painting" garden is the famous creation at Daisen-in, a part of the Daitoku-ji temple compound in Kvoto.
With these materials the Heian calligrapher--and later the Zen monochrome artist--created a subtle world of light and shade.
The landscape painting was their version of the Buddhist icon, and its monochrome abstraction was a profound expression of Zen aesthetics.
And just as the seemingly unfinished artistic statement nudges the viewer into participating in a work, the suggestive medium of monochrome with its implied rather than explicit hues tricks the viewer into unwittingly supplying his own colors.
Then I painted the same in monochrome in oils (I did not attempt water-colours, except to do flowers in the wash style which my mother had painted for many years).
The most complete copy of the cartoon is the monochromepainting belonging to the Earl of Leicester, at Holkham Hall.
The interior of the apadâna seems to have been simply coloured by means of a red monochrome stucco, almost completely concealed, however, by the rich carpets and embroidered draperies with which the walls of all the chambers were hung.
If the interior of the rooms was lined in monochrome with white stucco, or with fresco painting, nothing of this decoration is left.
This superiority is sufficiently illustrated by comparingmonochrome patterns of Italian majolica, Delft, and Chinese, with the modern printed ware of the same colour.
From monochrome he had adopted the low scale of the old masters, but into it he carried his light; the brown clouds, and shadows, and mists, had the sun behind them as it were in veiled splendour.
You may look at the thing a thousand times and nothing but the monochromewill be visible.
Into the open space between the portieres behind him there glided a little figure clad in amber-colored linen, the monochromewith the sun-spots beneath it.
With 24 Plates in Colour and Monochrome by the Author.
In the case of the Pisano tile, there is no indentation caused by the imprint of a mould, the surface being merely coated with a monochrome glaze, painted upon and fired, the decoration thus remaining flat all over.
He had paused to examine a large monochrome screen.
The kakemono picture-scroll hanging in the tokonoma was a severe monochrome landscape in the angular ink style of the great master Sesshu.
Use the colors of the Monochrome that give the highest intensity of magnetic response.
Let your eyes rest on the color of the Monochrome used, the current will then be complete.
Use the colors of the Monochrome in such cases as will give you the best vibration, the color that best responds to you.
From these you can form your Monochrome of almost endless results.
Painting in oil in monochrome will offer a welcome field for illustration work to those who are more accustomed to use this medium.
Why the Buddhist priests of the Zen sect became painters, and why they chose monochrome are questions involving a knowledge of the doctrines of Buddhism and of the Zen philosophy.
In monochrome itself fine relations of notan will suggest color.
