Term applied to monochrome painting carried out mostly in shades of grey. The use of the French word can be traced only to 1625, since although grisaille painting was done in preceding centuries, it was not referred to as such. The alternative expression peinture en camaïeu (gris) is also documented only more recently. In the 16th century there are occasional references to ‘dead colour’, but this term is no longer used. At the time of its origin, in the medieval period, grisaille painting was simply called ‘painting in black and white’, as is clear, for example, from an entry in the inventories of Jean de France, Duc de Berry, of 1401, 1413 and 1416: ‘Item, unes petites heures de Nostre Dame...enluminées de blanc et de noir’. However, this description is not very precise, as grisaille painting was never merely black and white at that time but was always combined with (more or less sparingly used) colours. The term grisaille, as commonly used today, itself only inadequately describes the various modes it subsumes. Their only common feature is the more or less exclusive use of non-coloured pigments, while they diverge technically and aesthetically to an often astonishing extent.

• grisaille paintings
  • Chiaroscuro
  • historical and regional traditions
    • Cistercian Order
      • Romanesque, §IX, 4: Stained glass: Iconography
    • England
      • Gothic, §IV, 4(ii): Painting techniques: Colour
      • Gothic, §VIII, 4(i): Stained glass: British Isles, before c 1380
      • Lincoln, §2(iii): Cathedral stained glass
    • France
      • Gothic, §IV, 5(vi)(b): Painting: France, c 1300–c 1350
      • Gothic, §VIII, 2: Stained glass: France
    • Gothic
      • Gothic, §VIII, 1: Stained glass: Introduction
  • uses
    • stained glass
      • Stained glass, §II, 1(iii): c 1100–1299
  • see also PAINTING -> types -> monochrome