White & Black

Above is an image by Vija Celmins, a spiderweb from 1999. In truth she has erased the white web from a toned charcoal ground but at other times she paints with light grey or whites on black painted grounds (see video below) so I thought the image still worked here. The purpose of this post is to provide some solid examples of working with dramatic bold light and dark, thanks in part to starting with a black ground. Unfortunately I was unable to find many examples that were to my liking when running a google image search on this topic so I'm providing a more curated list of images here for reference.

Left: Master ES | Right: Upper Rhenish master

 

Above: The moody prints of Max Klinger

Two more by Vija Celmins

Above is a selection of student work from Ohlone College, Fall 2024