Western Paintings - Monochrome Painting - A Meditative Art

Monochrome Painting - The History
The Contemporary Art form Monochrome Painting, as the name suggests, employs single color. The tonality and the expressivity of a single texture characterize this art form. Monochrome Painting originated as an art movement in the late 19th century, gaining further momentum during the World War I, when Dada (or Neo-Dada) activist group rejected the traditional aesthetics in art forms. Few famous examples of its whimsical nature in that period are a blank canvas titled 'A White Cow in a Snowstorm,' and an all black painting called 'Negroes Fighting in a Cellar at Night.' Monochrome Painting was established as a 'Meditative Art' in the 20th century with the illusionist works of Suprematist and Constructivist artists, such as Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935) and Alexander Rodchenko (1891-1956). Although, no artists dedicated themselves exclusively to painting monochrome, various Abstractionists and Expressionists of the 20th and 21st century significantly contributed to this art form.

Monochrome Artists & Artworks
o Negroes Fighting in the Cellar at Night (1882) by Paul Bilhaud (Allichamps, France, 1854-1933)
o Black Square on a White Field (1913), White on White (1918) by Kazimir Malevich (Russia, 1879-1935)
o The Death of Painting (1921) by Alexandr Rodchenko (Russia, 1891-1956)
o Presences (1950) by Richard Pousette Dart (New York, 1916-1992)
o Voice of Fire (1967) by Barnett Newman (New York, 1905-1970)
o International Klein Blue (1962) by Yves Klein (Paris, 1928-1962)
o Ledger (1982) by Robert Ryman (Tennessee, USA, 1938)
o Marriage of Reason and Squalor (1959) by Frank Stella (Masachusetts, USA, 1936)
o White Flag (1998) by Jasper Johns (Georgia, USA, 1930)
o Collection of One Hundred Plaster Surrogates (1990) by Allan McCullum (California, USA, 1944)
o Presence of the Heart (1962) by Sally Hazelet Drummond (USA, 1924)
o Return 1 (1965), The Dylan Painting (1986) by Brice Marden (New York, USA, 1938)

Conclusion
Monochrome is very engaging to art critics across the world, due to its myriad possibility of interpretations. It has often been criticized for its lack of expression without the artist's comments. The 'pure' monochromes, where the delineation of objects is not clearly visible to the viewer, such as Black Paintings by Reinhardt, are particularly misleading due to the creation's uncertainty of perception. Nevertheless, this art form had significant influence on other art movements in the West, such as Post-Painterly Abstraction, Minimalism, and Lyrical Abstraction.

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