Gaga about Grisaille

Being the little Francophiles we all around here, it won’t come as a big surprise that one of our very favorite elements of French design is grisaille – that gorgeous monochromatic method of painting, usually done in a wide range of black, white and gray tones.

(First of all, how to pronounce this little tongue-twister.  Try this: “griz-eye”. It rhymes witih “Versailles”.)

What’s not to love about this centuries old style of painting?  The technique usually resembles sketching, relief or sculpture.  It was a technique favored by the likes of Rembrandt, Vermeer, Titan and Caravaggio – and we can all agree they certainly knew what they were doing.

Lately, we’ve been seeing grisaille everywhere in magazines and in the blogosphere and it’s making us so happy.  We’re just in love with the soft, romantic and barely-there effect that grisaille has.   In fact, we’re still all in awe of the March-April 2012 Veranda cover that had us swooning.    Proudly standing as a perfectly elegant backdrop were two amazing grisaille screens.  They quietly added their special presence while allowing the rest of the room to shine.

The March/April 2012 cover of Veranda is grisaille perfection.

That cover got us chatting and thinking about grisaille…and what a great fit it would be at Huff Harrington Home.  It always feels vaguely toile-y and very, very French to us and we thought it would be fun to incorporate it into our mix some day.

We could picture something like this at the store:

 

A beautiful grisaille screen that looks like it came from

some 17th century chateau. From Pinterest.

We found this lovely sketch from Editor-at-Large and think it perfectly sums up the idea of grisaille: fifty shades of gray!

A perfect interior done in grisaille watercolor.

And speaking of fifty perfect shades of gray:

Love this palette from Fleaing France.

We did a little research and spent an afternoon drooling over some images of grisaille in all its glory, like this from the Queen of Elegant, Suzanne Rheinstein:

 

No-one does classic elegance like Suzanne Rheinstein whom we’ve loved forever.

 

This interior, also by Suzanne, had us hooked at first glance. The grisaille on the back wall is just incredible.

More drop-dead gorgeous grisaille from Suzanne.

It turns out fellow bloggers have had opinions about grisaille…and most of them like ours. Everyone just loves it for its quiet beauty which just whispers at you.

This is a more dramatic rendering of grisaille from Splendid Sass.

And from another blogger we like a lot, Pure Home Style, we saw these lovely grisaille treatments:

 This was actually featured on Martha Stewart’s website, so we give the 

grisaille stairwell a thumbs-up.

 Also from Pure Style Home, a grisaille treatment in a dining room. 

We think we like the traditional grays better. What about you?

A pretty vignette where grisaille takes center stage.  

From Eclectic Revisited (which is no longer publishing.)

(We also just have to include this next image from the wonderful Cote de Texas which ran a great post on India Hicks and her designer husband, David Flint Wood. Mr. Flint Wood recently completed Brooke Shields’ NYC home which features…you got it…a gorgeous grisaille treatment in the dining room.  Feast your eyes:

 David Flint Wood used pretty grisaille wallpaper from Zuber in 

Brooke Shields’ NYC dining room.

Anyway…fast forward a few months to a chilly spring morning at the local Starbucks.  We run into an old art acquaintance who fills us in on her news. Yes, she’s still painting.   And she’s doing lots of different things, including these terrific panels in grisaille. She asked us if we were familiar with grisaille and we almost spilled our lattes.

So, it wasn’t long before our cute friend, the wonderfully talented and spunky Jane Ingols presented us with these stunning canvases that embody everything we adore about grisaille.  They’re oozing sophistication, elegantly simple yet technically intense.  And Jane’s incorporated the most authentic little touches, like adding faux nailheads along the sides of the canvas – perfectly rusty and aged.

 

 Our own grisaille artist and friend, Jane Ingols, did these panels for us…aren’t they fab?

 

18th century?  Mais non.  

Old rusty nails on the sides of the canvas are actually faux.

 We’ve proudly got them hanging front and center in the store as soon as you walk in as a part of a super-Frenchy vignette we created. We love the softness of the panels married with a lustre of an 18th-century antique gold mirror from Paris, a chunky buffet with a gorgeous patina and two clean, contemporary armchairs.

 

These panels would be spectacular in a dining room, a foyer or just about anywhere you can imagine having a hand-painted nod to all things Frenchy and wonderful.

Here’s what we keep learning every day: take all the things you love, mix them all up, and a little surprise here and there, have fun…and you’ll end up with the most lovely ooh-la-la result that you could ever imagine.

Ta ta.