Grisaille

Limners often produced illuminated manuscripts in pen and wash with a very limited colour range, and many artists such as Jean Pucelle (active c. 1320–1350) and Matthew Paris specialised in such work, which had been especially common in England since Anglo-Saxon times.

Renaissance artists such as Mantegna and Polidoro da Caravaggio often used grisaille to imitate the effect of a classical sculptured relief or Roman painting.

In the Low Countries, a continuous tradition of grisaille painting can be traced from Early Netherlandish painting to Martin Heemskerck (1498–1574), Pieter Brueghel the Elder (Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, 1565) and Hendrik Goltzius, and through the copious output of Adriaen van de Venne, to the circle of Rembrandt and Jan van Goyen.

Portions of the ceiling frescoes of the Sistine Chapel are executed in grisaille, as is the lower section of the great staircase decoration by Antonio Verrio (c. 1636 – 1707) at Hampton Court.

[4][5] Brunaille and verdaille painting both have their roots in 12th century stained glass made for Cistercian monasteries, which prohibited the use of coloured art in 1134.