The bias against black

[Jim T]

Originally Posted by Richard Saylor

Any color can be misused. It's absurd to single out black as the main culprit.

Richard

Ditto!

[LarrySeiler]

If a recipe is calling for sugar...and you instead use salt, flour...but you use oatmeal, well...then you will have a far different product and judgment on the recipe thereafter is not fair.

Black is a legitimate recipe or ingredient to a palette strategy for artists whose ends in mind would be served best by black. However, we have to becareful to sum all painters up as being "real" painters...

John Singer Sargent was without question a master painter. He used black quite masterfully with his portraits. He was friends with many of the Impressionists that did not use black. At times painted with some of them.

Sargent also used "China white" with his watercolors which would put him at odds with watercolor purists, and rarely does his name come up among watercolors as being a master, but certainly Singer Sargent's paintings of Venice, rivers, landscapes, sculpture fountains, Arab nomads and so forth are some of the finest watercolors ever produced.

But just as important is THAT working order that one will come upon that will fuel, energy, direct, and develop one's painting direction.

Relatively speaking near any color scheme works so long as the values are right, (something Emile A. Gruppe himself pointed out); and the artist is free to create their own atmosphere within the confines of the canvas that will work itself out in that relative way.

Now having said that...I am often suggesting and making a point against the use of black.

Because...black is salt, when my recipe calls for sugar.

If artists ask me, or ask of anyone an opinion...I believe black is very difficult to pull off, Sargent an exception. Pulling it off means that the painting when completed goes beyond benign realism but also possesses a believable REAL'ness.

My recipe...for my manner of working (subjective...thus need not apply to all artists, all art...) is that many artists work in keeping to a realism that photographs suggest. After all many artists work from photographs.

We get away with it in our culture because moderns have been enculturated or shall we say bombarded since birth with images. Magazine pictures, billboards, television, movies...everywhere. We have come to accept the photo as telling truth...frozen time.

However...if one's recipe is to paint and project the sense of REAL'ness, then one seeks their work to feel as light does witnessing and seeing it directly.

A thru the lens shuttering system of the camera is all geared to favor the light, push shadows to a colorless flat lifeless area. In fact, even photos in art books of our favorite painters lie to us, for they never do justice to the actual work seen in the museum. More so then with nature.

I painted with black on my palette the first 17 years of my artist's career, working instudio. It wasn't until around 1995 when I first ventured to take a makeshift homemade easel outdoors to paint from nature that I observed that black would no longer represent the truth of what I was seeing.

Understand though that would apply only if the relative truth of instudio works was no longer the recipe and direction for me to go.

Outdoors, a shadow was not the lifeless colorless darks of a photograph, but an opportunity for indirect atmospheric light and bounced reflected light to demonstrate their presence. A photograph reference does not reveal such. The only time I really saw totally black, painting outdoors was painting nocturnals with a light on the bill of my ballcap but even then, I saw color in the blacks as part of the equation.

One winter, about 3am...with a moon...about 8 degrees below zero. Eerie greens in the darks. Still not perfectly black.

I have tried using black outdoors introducing color into it...but something about the black pigment killing the color and not looking nor feeling right. In other words, unlike Sargent, I've not learned to use black right.

What I will submit...is that I don't believe 99% of artists have learned to use black right either. It is like the kiss of death. That is...if REAL'ness as a necessary ingredient to support real'ism.

A painting possesses REAL'ness for me if standing before it I can allow myself to fall captive to the painting for just a moment and FEEL as though I could be standing there. I can feel the light, imagine the breeze or winds, and so forth.

Color is one of those things that projects that feeling for me, and for the recipe that projects REAL'ness rightly for ME...I find the use of black causes artist's work to feel more like representing a photograph than it does nature.

It is difficult in the passion of our discussions, wearing our emotions on our sleeves as artists often do...to not well explain one's opinion...just as we do not necessarily read a thing said rightly. I will insist black is not good to have on the palette...but that will be in speaking with vested interest for why my paintings turn out as they do and those paintings of others I most enjoy.

This does not mean I am not capable of seeing the art in the art of those that do use black. They just lack the feeling of convincing REAL'ness for the recipe I incline to. If you love using it...by all means do.

To show I am open minded about this...this past year, I did a few indoor larger waterfall oils and used black. The intent I was after allowed for black in the recipe. The paintings fail to deliver the sense of REAL'ness my other paintings have, but they are yet strong works of art invoking something else in the viewer making them worthwhile; which was an interesting experiment for me. Yet...when I returned to paint outdoors...knowing what I would experience outdoors...I left the black home.

[ChristineC]

Black was definitely banned with the Impressionist style teacher I studied with a few years ago but now I am studying classic

[sfumato1002]

LOL! to me black is the most important color in my palette.

Actually I like carbon black from maimeri, it is the blackest black I have found. I think Ivory is somewhat weak. Like comparing weak ultramarine blue to strong and rich PB60 Faience Blue from maimeri also.

Black is the foundation of my painting, it guides me to use rich strong colors through out my work.


the pigment black is everywhere in nature and black also is seen in deep shadows where there is no light been reflected.

Again, without black I would find another proffesion. Thats all I have to say.

[sfumato1002]

Originally Posted by LarrySeiler

What I will submit...is that I don't believe 99% of artists have learned to use black right either. It is like the kiss of death. That is...if REAL'ness as a necessary ingredient to support real'ism.

Lucky me! Im in that 1% that has learned to paint with black.

[sfumato1002]

Originally Posted by mr.wiggles

If black was good enough for: Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Velasquez, Vermeer, Manet, Sargent, Zorn, Degas, Franz Kline to name a few, it's good enough for me.

Please don't forget Leonardo Da Vinci. Black was his favorite pigment.

[LarrySeiler]

Originally Posted by sfumato1002

Lucky me! Im in that 1% that has learned to paint with black.

yep....lucky you!

I used it most of my professional wildlife art career. I thought I used black well, and won Wisconsin's Wildlife Artist of the Year in 1984 using black. Apparently the judges thought I used it well as well.

Won and placed 23 more times in 33 competitions I entered, using black.

So...if you would have asked me back then during those first 17 years of painting, I probably would have argued for black and said "lucky me!" too.

Now...I look at those past works of mine, and based on what I've been painting outdoors the past twelve years, they just look so lifeless. They have realism, but not REAL'ness. That's my eye now, versus back then.

I guess its relative.

Main thing is...you're happy with its use, so use it happily!!!

[LarrySeiler]

Originally Posted by sfumato1002

Please don't forget Leonardo Da Vinci. Black was his favorite pigment.

that's so true...

and his work, though beautiful, classic and so forth...does not represent nature's light all that well, IMO. They are wonderfully realistic, but lack REAL'ness to me. They do not ring true to life...again, this is subjective. This is the reason art movements did not end with Da Vinci. His work was not the final ex nihilo end to end all ends. Artists that followed developed seeing for themselves and required finding palettes that would service their need of expression.

Certainly a grand thing though, for any artist wishing their work to emulate Da Vinci's!

When I began painting, I painted and copied Rembrandt and Frans Hals works for a good long while. Their work at that time defined life as I wished to see it. Hals alla prima and light is more intune now with how I personally see light than say Rembrandt or Da Vinci...but again...such is subject to change as we grow, isn't it?

all good though...all good,

and I've said my share here...so I'll bow out. Good art is made with black...there is no question. Seems we either grow on with it, or grow on without it...

take care

[Artmakr]

On Black.

Early impressionist didn't use it, but van gogh did, and degas and picasso to good effect.

Don't use black is more of a guidline than a rule. Especially for beginners, instead of using black we try to use colours to paint the shadows. I used to use black as a last resort, sometimes to great effect, more often, it destroyed the painting.

But lately, I've been using it with a sense of reverence,. Take special care when using black, should be the rule!

[Richard Saylor]

I use various blacks. In gouache it's very easy to mix a convincing black from three suitable primaries, but it looks the same as a tube black to me. I.e., in highly opaque media, such as gouache or casein, a tube black is somewhat like a convenience color. This is not the case with more sophisticated transparent media such as watercolor, in which pigments may be selected not only for their color but for various other physical properties (flocculation, granulation, etc.). Also, with acrylics (glorified house paint ) it can be difficult to mix convincing blacks, so in this medium I find tube blacks to be very useful.

To me, objections to black seem more philosophical than practical, but that's just me.

Richard

[Einion]

Hi Larry, I see what you're saying about the kind of colours/colouring you can get with black that don't ring true to you but I think this is really an argument about the over-use, or misuse, of black rather than a condemnation of its use.

It's like with the artists who weren't aware of having black in their palettes - because it was hiding in something like a Van Dyke Brown Hue or Payne's Grey - the specific uses they put those colours to meant that the small amount of black in their paintings worked fine (certainly well enough not to raise their own anti-black alarm bells!) because of where and how it was used.

I've done side-by-side comparisons using black for some of the things it's naturally suited to. One of the obvious ones is making a green with a yellow or yellow earth compared to a blue + yellow mix with something added to neutralise it and the results are so close in every respect as to make no difference which way you go, although of course you do have to adjust the mixture to compensate.

And in the case of darkening certain colours without making them too dull, black actually works better than any other route, unless you happen to have a dark-valued paint in the same rough hue category. This is especially useful in limited-palette schemes; so for example using Phthalo Blue GS, Cadmium Yellow and Quinacridone Rose and you want a really dark green that requires a given amount of yellow - because the yellow is lightening the mixture as you add it to the blue, you raise the value the more of it that's needed; there's no way around it. There are only two ways available to the painter to get that dark value back if it's desired (if keeping the hue the same is important) and that is mixing in some Quin Rose or some of the black; of the two the mixtures with black are less dull.

Originally Posted by sfumato1002

Actually I like carbon black from maimeri, it is the blackest black I have found.

Ditto! It's probably my favourite acrylic black of the few I have in terms of how dark it is and also for its covering power & tinting strength, which makes it pretty versatile for something that's technically semitransparent.

Originally Posted by Richard Saylor

To me, objections to black seem more philosophical than practical, but that's just me.

Einion

[Patrick1]

Originally Posted by Einion

And in the case of darkening certain colours without making them too dull, black actually works better than any other route, unless you happen to have a dark-valued paint in the same rough hue category.

Do you mean it's because adding black will come closer to merely darkening a color, whereas adding the complement will often result in a more greyed appearance?

[Einion]

Originally Posted by Patrick1

Do you mean it's because adding black will come closer to merely darkening a color, whereas adding the complement will often result in a more greyed appearance?

Yep. With a primary triad the blue or red/rose/magenta will always work somewhat as a mixing complement in a mixture involving the other two primaries, regardless of the proportions of the mix, so adding it will immediately move the blend toward grey (and generally very swiftly, as you know). With black on the other hand, although it does of course dull some colours it darkens more quickly, hence the better results.

Einion

[LarrySeiler]

Originally Posted by Einion

Hi Larry, I see what you're saying about the kind of colours/colouring you can get with black that don't ring true to you but I think this is really an argument about the over-use, or misuse, of black rather than a condemnation of its use.

I'll agree, and my comments are not so much condemnation, though I am down on the success I supposedly had over time past. The "misuse" to my thinking is demonstrated by those that use it to worse ends than if black had not been used, and to my observation and thus opinion, that probably would define about 80% of those that use it.

That I no longer much appreciate the works of my former career using black, I must be accused and come to agree that I must have not used black well. Not a master of black.

I think it better to not use it, than to use it poorly. Just my opinion...and ya'll know how I define opinions and specifically my own. "Opinions are like armpits, everyone has at least two of them, and most stink!"

I always encourage folks to dismiss my opinions, and I feel better knowing people may do that frequently.

It's like with the artists who weren't aware of having black in their palettes - because it was hiding in something like a Van Dyke Brown Hue or Payne's Grey - the specific uses they put those colours to meant that the small amount of black in their paintings worked fine (certainly well enough not to raise their own anti-black alarm bells!) because of where and how it was used.

Glad you would use those two as examples, perhaps why then I do not care for either one of those pigments!

no condemnation...not on my part, though I'll cast the first stones toward my own past works.

peace

[Einion]

Originally Posted by LarrySeiler

I think it better to not use it, than to use it poorly.

Good point to make about a lot of other things in painting too

Einion