Grisaille (redirected from grisailles)

grisaille (grĭzī`, –zāl`, Fr. grēzä`yə), a monochrome painting and drawing technique executed in tones of gray. Such works were often produced in the Renaissance to simulate sculpture, as in Uccello's equestrian portrait of Sir John Hawkswood (Cathedral of Florence). Painters of stained glass frequently used grisaille. In the 17th cent. grisaille was prized for interior decoration.

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grisaille

Grisaille stained glass, detail of the Five Sisters Window, 13th century, Cathedral of St. Peter, …

(credit: Copyright Sonia Halliday and Laura Lushington)

Painting technique by which an image is executed entirely in shades of gray and usually modeled to produce the illusion of sculpture or relief. It was used especially by 15th-century Flemish painters (e.g., Jan van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece, 1432) and in the late 18th century to imitate Classical sculpture in wall and ceiling decoration. It is sometimes used to produce monotone underpainting for translucent oil colours. In the 16th century grisaille enamels were developed in Limoges, France; the technique achieves a dramatic effect of light and shade and a pronounced sense of three-dimensionality.

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grisaille [grə′zī]

(graphic arts)

A technique of painting to imitate a bas-relief and done in shades of gray.

All methods of painting in which full modeling is done in black and white or other contrasting tones, and then finished by the application of transparent glazes.

(textiles)

A poplin-type fabric in salt-and-pepper gray with printed warp and coarse filling that imparts a texture.

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grisaille

1. A system of painting in grey tints of various shades; used either for decoration or to represent objects, as in relief.

2. A stained glass window executed according to this method.

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Grisaille 

a kind of decorative painting executed in various shades of some one color (most often gray). Grisaille dates from the 17th century and is widely used in interior murals of the classic style that are mainly imitations of sculptured reliefs (for example, in palaces in the cities of Pushkin and Pavlovsk, in the auditorium of the old building of Moscow University, and in the 18th-century palaces in Ostankino and Kuskovo). Grisaille is also the name applied to paintings in monochrome enamel (gray, brown, pink) with some elements of gold, in which a sculptured effect is achieved.