The deep contrast between black and white creates striking and dramatic images. Graphic art, such as drawing and print making, uses this sharp contrast to great effect. Monochrome drawings in clear-cut pen and ink, or softer but bold charcoal and pencil, communicate an artist’s ideas with simplicity and directness.
Monochrome Paintings
In a black and white painting, the viewer’s eye sometimes tends to ‘read’ particular areas of light and shade as colours. Black paint itself is often varied with, for example, blue blacks, purple blacks or brown blacks. Sir Terry Frost’s paintings, such as ‘Through Blacks‘, show this clearly (1969, Tate Britain). Black and white is frequently used by abstract painters because of its expressive quality and strong contrast. Terry Frost created many abstract paintings using black and white to emphasise his simple, bold shapes.
In the Goldcrest Gallery collection
There are several beautiful monochromes, or black and white designs in the Goldcrest Gallery greeting cards collection. Two of our original wallpaper patterns from the 1950s, ‘Domino‘ and ‘Intersections‘, are eye-catching and distinctive monochromes. The pronounced contrast between black and white produces an optical effect of movement within these images. Similarly, ‘Poissons‘, our popular greeting card design, is another arresting composition in monochrome. Here, black and white contrast has been employed to create dramatic vertically and horizontally-striped fish and water weeds. There is a more delicate use of monochrome in the 1970s textile design, ‘Spanish Blackwork‘. In this example, the designer has used fine lines and large areas of white to produce an effect of lace.
A black and white picture can be hung in any room. The neutral monochrome will be in harmony with every other colour scheme. This is one of the unique properties of black and white. The strength of the contrast in monochrome images can hold its own next to every bold hue. In art, black and white are opposites, but they are not opponents. They work together to give artistic design an emphatic quality and clarity. Introduce a distinctive and stylish image into your home with one of our lovely black and white designs!
View our ‘Monochrome Edit‘ – a selection of Goldcrest Gallery’s original monochromatic designs.