Black: The Queen of All Colors

“I’ve been 40 years discovering that the queen of all colors was black.”

- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Young Woman at the Piano 1876 Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Blacks are perhaps one of the most misunderstood group of colors used by painters today. Some painters won’t use them—others only use them in a nearly pure form, as when painting something which is itself black. Those who know the powerful uses of black and regularly use it in their paintings tend to be either classically trained in painting or advanced self-learners. Whether you are a representational artist, seeking to explore the chiaroscuro effects of a subject or an artist working in pure, abstract colors, the mission is the same—how to know which black to use to get the effect wanted.

We never received much information in our schooling about this group of marvelous colors, perhaps because we have grown up in an age of color variety and availability unknow…