A colorful world is always a synonym for paradise. A grey or monocolored world is always a synonym for purgatory or hell…The diversity of color brings paradise.
Friedensreich Hundertwasser
Are paintings in monochromes created because of a need to explore the subtle variables of one color, a preference for consistency, or because of a desire to make a statement?
A monochrome image is composed of one color but though steady and regularized, the shades of limited color like shades of grey – grayscale – are affected by visible light, monochromatic light.
Robert Rauschenberg’s modular panels which he first grouped in white, then black and then red, are well-known. Through the use of monochrome, some artists commit to the exploration and in-depth examination of a single color. And some have chosen to paint in grisaille, that is, only in shades of grey or in black and white. Think of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica – his visual howl against the bombing of that town. The black against the white is powerful. “Why do two colors, put next to the other sing?” Pablo Picasso asked.
Monochrome need not be monotones or monotonous. Artists might use monochrome paintings to show how light and color can create shapes and even subject matter. Often, artists use monochrome to suggest ideas – a good artistic form of expression as long as it is not repeated too often because then it might become boring. For such artists, the medium (saturated with one color) is the subject. Their one-color paintings are, in a way, their homage to that particular color.
For me color – an abundance of colors is my sustenance. In The World of Glimpse, I created a Many-Colored Sky. I cannot imagine living in a monochromatic world!
NO-COLOR LAND
No-Color Land:
Bland. Same. Tame.
No color with a name.
Blue, green, yellow, white?
Nowhere in sight.
Black, brown, pink, red? Not a color in my head. Indigo, blue, purple, peach?
They’re all anaemic bleach!
What a wash-out of a dream!
I welcome morning’s color scheme.
Ellen,
I recognize that you took your beautifully painted pictures off the wall
and placed it on ladies pants. The picture looks great on
both places.
Sam Harris