GRISAILLES. — By the term g. (grisaille) is meant either a painting that imitates sculpture by employing only grey tones, or a preliminary sketch in which the white of the canvas serves as the light and shadows are rendered with a grey tint.
Used especially in decorative art, painting in g. is found frequently already in manuscripts of the 15th century and in stained glass; it was particularly employed to decorate furniture in the 17th century. Renowned in this genre of art was the Dutchman E. de Witt. The range of greys is naturally very wide and one must not believe that grisaille is therefore only in black and white, since in fact it also exploits mixtures with blue, pink, brown, and violet hues.