The Secret of Black in Old Masters paintings

hello everyone and welcome to my Channel today I  want to talk about the use of plaque pigments and   the use of black paint in general in all master  paintings I've had a lot of you writing in and   asking me questions about all master paintings and  the use of black specifically the types of blacks   that artists such as Velasquez and Rembrand tall  the great Masters use the Old Masters use three   types of blacks foam black lamp black and charcoal  black they use these colors to create a sense of   atmosphere emotion and a lot of drama in their  works and this is one of the main ingredients of   all Masterworks when we talk about a painter like  Vermeer for example The Girl With a Pearl Earring   I did a demonstration last year where I recreated  this word and I used mostly charcoal black to set   up the under painting and this was confirmed  by chemical analysis published by scientists   that have studied these paintings in detail  and have gone through the layers to establish   a sequence a working sequence so when you look  at how Vermeer built up this painting and how it   was arranged you see these high contrast of light  and shade and that's not just unique to Vermeer in   this painting title Las Meninas by Velasquez  he uses strong contrast of light and shade   by using deep darks and you see that the  background has a lot of grayish tones and   he achieves these Colors by mixing charcoal  black Glam black and perhaps bone black the   combination of these three Shades of Black allow  for extended range of Grays and that's something   that I talk about in my classes with a lot of my  students this is something that is very unique   to this period of art where artists are working  primarily with these very limited palettes and   mixing these colors with black one of the things  that I want to mention is that in Pacheco's Arte   de la Pintura of text that I'm always referring  to here on my channel he does recommend the use   of white and black in order to mix the values  in general this is something that you see in   a lot of manuscripts from this era black is found  everywhere in all master paintings when you study   painters such as Rembrandt this is a painting  that was stolen the paintings titled Christ in   the Sea of Galilee right now we're doing a class  where we're recreating this painting and this is   part of my live courses and what we're doing  is we're building up the painting with Shades   of Gray with shades of brown and Rembrandt seems  to have used black everywhere along this painting   I mean you see that there's deep darks along the  bottom of the painting the sky has shades of blue   but these are very dark tones and this creates a  lot of drama it creates a lot of atmosphere and   that's something that I enjoy very much about the  old Masterworks this is something that I do in my   own work I'll mix perhaps on black and lamb  black either with other colors or I'll glaze   with a transparent color Rembrandt with artists  that use varying mixtures and he used matter Lake   mixed with bone black to create some of the brown  colors that you see so it's not just using Earth   colors they're also using black the black color  is very important because it gives you a nice   range of tones and it has a lot of transparency  so if you just use a brown for example a raw   umber or a burnt umber you can't really adjust the  temperature as easily as if you were to mix for   example this small and black or matter Lake and  black so these are colors that you could use or   you could employ to give a lot of depth and a lot  of richness to the atmosphere in your paintings   today you have a lot of teachers tell you do not  use black because the black could dirty soil the   colors it it will destroy the mixtures and that  is true in part it's essentially how you handle   the black so if you're mixing for example white  with black and making it gray and just mixing a   lot of colors together that will make mud and  that's something that you don't want in your   paintings by the 19th century a lot of artists  that were Allied to the impressionist movement   started using more saturated palettes going out  to the landscape and reacting to actual color   observed in a landscape setting here we have an  image by Monet and this is an image that is very   colorful I mean you have a painting that is has  very little darks the artist has gone out to the   landscape and it's reacting to high chroma color  painting directly from observation and mixing the   colors right there and then so there's not a  lot of glazing there's not a lot of layering   it's just essentially opaque painting with a  full color palette and reacting to the color   as he sees it in the landscape this was Innovative  at the time and a lot of artists were influenced   by the impression today when you compare artists  from the 17th century or even up mid 19th Century   at parties such as Delacroix you see a fundamental  shift in the way that they approach color artists   from the 17th century or prior to the 19th century  were influenced by curious Chiaroscuro which is a   technique that employs one source of light and  Deep Shadows and high contrast where artists   such as Monet are using an even light with very  little shadows and this has huge repercussions in   the way that you perceive color whereas there's no  Shadows the artist is going out to the landscape   and he's approaching color that's local color an  immediate approach to color whereas somebody like   Vermeer or Rembrandt they're building up layers  and layers and these layers are not necessarily   opaque sometimes they're transparent so that's a  fundamental shift in strategy for artists that are   reacting to the landscape and influenced by the  impressionist movement when we study works that   are are developed by Monet this is a beautiful  painting has a gorgeous approach to color and   you can see that the Shadows are painted with  a lot of Blues and greens and this is something   that you see in modern painting you don't see this  strategy employed by painters prior to the 19th   century one of the reasons that artists from the  19th century had access to new pigments and they   were using tubed pigments which they could take to  the landscape and paint directly Plein Air meaning   directly outside in the landscape so this is an  important consideration when you're choosing your   palette and I still prefer paintings that are  based on interiors and high contrast but here   you see how Monet is essentially creating high  contrast but keeping the Shadows colorful which is   something that is very unique to the impressionist  so a painter like Matisse for example anything   from 1905 is using its impressionist approach  to color for painting the human figure a lot   of artists did it as well say son Van Gogh as  well this explosions of colors that you see in   Contemporary Art are pretty much influenced by  the Impressionists and that's something that you   could draw from now we have the ability to learn  from anything that you desire and we have artists   that are using full palettes limited palettes  so that's something that I that I like to teach   in my classes one of the things that I really  encourage my students to learn is recite painting   or monochromatic painting as sort of a basis for  understanding color so understanding chroma is   really difficult because you have to first see  color as value and Painters from the past train   themselves primarily by using monochromatic Shades  at the beginning and that's something that I do in   my own classes I train my students to work with  for example a grisaille painting we usually use   a sphere the development of a sphere using pure  steel lighting I've just launched a Udemy course   a new Udemy course that focuses on this exercise  where students could learn how to construct a   sphere using just Shades of Gray in a value scale  this is so important if you want to get started   with your artistic training and one of the things  that I really encourage students to do is to   explore different palettes the palette is pretty  much the key to painting by personalizing your   palette and learning how the potential of your  palette you will gain a lot of knowledge on how   you approach color this is probably the most  important thing I want to invite everyone to   subscribe to my channel if you haven't done  so and I want to invite you to check out my   Udemy courses available on the link below I just  shared coupon with you guys for a limited time you   could get a great deal on my new course on oil  painting for beginners thank you for watching

Channel: Luis Borrero, Visual Artist

Views: 19,010

Keywords: black oil paints, Black is the perfect color for painting, can I use black for painting, old masters painting techniques, painting techniques, color theory, art, oil painting, how to paint, chiaroscuro painting technique, bone black, charcoal black, lamp black, how to use black in your pantings, what types of black pigments are used for painting, old masters black pigments, the secret of black in old master paintings, #LasMeninas, #Pacheco, #Rembrandt, Vermeer, velazquez

Id: yCVp73vjKhU

Length: 9min 27sec (567 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 26 2023