grisaille

CONT: Le terme de grisaille désigne une peinture traitée en monochromie pour imiter le bas-relief à l'aide d'une dégradation entre le noir et le blanc de valeurs grises. Cette monochromie peut être établie également à partir d'une gamme chromatique différente à base de vert, par exemple [...]
OBS: L'appellation [grisaille] est parfois synonyme de «camaïeu» et surtout de «clair-obscur», comme le précise Vasari dans son introduction aux «Trois Arts du dessin» [...] Il faut évoquer enfin l'emploi du terme «grisaille» dans l'art du vitrail, où il désigne soit une expression monochrome, soit une modification de valeur de la même couleur.

CONT: grisaille ... Such works were often produced in the Renaissance to simulate sculpture, as in Uccello's equestrian portrait of Sir John Hawkswood (Cathedral of Florence). Painters of stained glass frequently used grisaille. In the 17th cent. grisaille was prized for interior decoration.
OBS: 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.