If you’ve ever heard advice to avoid black out of the tube when painting, this article is a good explainer for what that actually means in practice.
Below is a collection of art in which I think the black looks really great.
‘Absurd Alphabet’ illustrated by Walter Crane, 1874 Eric Fraser, 1951


BLACK WATER
The black of the water below is unexpected but hugely effective as a contrast against the yellows, greens and blues.
BLACK OF THE FOREST
I love that the forest below looks like colour laid upon black. The darkness of the forest ‘shines’ through.
For the illustrations below, Harrison Cady uses flat blacks for the background line of trees, the foreground foliage and also on the characters’ clothing.

THE BLACK OF LINOGRAVURE (LINOCUT)
Certain types of art will naturally result in more darkness in the finished work.

Earlier printing technologies also meant a limited colour palette, so illustrations from the 19th century tend towards blackness.




BLACK IN ART NOUVEAU
Black is especially useful to Art Nouveau because a flat black negative space balances out all the ornamental decoration. We find a lot of flat black in artwork from the 1920s and 30s. (Art Nouveau lasted from roughly 1880 until just before World War I.) Walls, skies, floors, clothing, animals — the artist can use a flat black for pretty much anything, as the composition requires.
These artists all had a similar look:
- Kay Nielsen
- Ida Rentoul Outhwaite
- Margaret Clark (Australian)
- Virginia Frances Sterrett (American)
- Marjorie Miller [Estes]
- Dorothy Lathrop’s work feels like these artists only ‘for kids’
- Adrienne Adams (American) also illustrated for kids but her black-heavy works retained more creepiness than Dorothy Lathrop’s

![Marjorie Miller [Estes] (1899 - 1995) 1931 Queen Of The Night illustration](https://i2.wp.com/www.slaphappylarry.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Marjorie-Miller-Estes-1899-1995-1931-Queen-Of-The-Night-illustration.jpg?resize=525%2C656&ssl=1)

Incidentally, here is a similar palette:
The Honeymoon by Margaret Clark, 1926 The First Aid Fairy by Margaret Clark 1901-2001 Margaret Clark 1901-2001 Australian illustrator black
Ida Rentoul Outhwaite worked in both black and white and colour, and I think experience in black and white makes an illustrator especially good at tonal contrasts. She also made use of the flat black when creating her coloured fairy world illustrations.



There are many black, starry skies in Art Nouveau and similar styles.





FABIANO, Fabien (Jules COUP de FRÉJAC, 1882-1962). ‘The Coquette’, “Shadowland”, Vol. 7, Nº 6, 1923 Descending the Stairs, J C Leyendecker, 1929

Black is perhaps not a colour you’d associate with Tove Jannsen, but she used it, all right.
When illustrating the dark, it’s not always the sky that’s black.
BLACK IN PICTURE BOOKS



BLACK OF THE DISNEY ARTISTS
Perhaps we don’t associate flat blacks with Disney animations, either. But look at the concept drawings of the Disney artists and the blacks pop.




BLACK IN POSTER DESIGN
Poster by Gian Rossetti, 1949 toothpaste advertisement Poster by Milton Glaser, 1977 ‘The Call of the Wild’ Cover by Roberto Lemmi, 1966 illustration by Ralph Weir, 1925 A Comet’s Journey, 1844 JJ Grandville 1844 Poster for Fromme’s Calendar (1899) by Koloman Moser Poster Art Agriculture c. 1930-1936 Leonetto Cappiello Achille Mauzan, c.1920 Jean d’Ylen, 1920s Mario Broggi, 1922

Below, black is used to offset typography.
Gert Sellheim, 1937 Henry Clive 1923 Leopoldo Metlicovitz, 1918 Harry Richardson, 1920 Poster by Boccasile, about 1950 1918, during the First World War From Yellow Submarine (poster) Heinz Edelmann 1968
The Man Who Laughs Cover by L. Andreotti, 1907 Charles Henry Malcolm Kerr The Visitor exhibited 1905
THE BLACK OF FOLK ART
Since folk art is so often either woodcut, linocut or made to look like that, it frequently black as a base.



The Rainbow (Радуга-дуга), 1969

The Cat At Night by Dahlov Ipcar cover
Kathleen Lolley Brian Larossa
FLAT BLACK ANIMALS
Jacques (Lehmann) Nam, 1911-Illustration from Le Smile cat Dorothy P Lathrop from the book The Three Mulla-Mulgars He felt a sudden darkness above his head, and a cold terror crept over his skin Dorothy P Lathrop from the book The Three Mulla-Mulgars


BLACK ROOFS
1957 illustration by William Dugan Songs We Sing, Little Golden Book by Roger Duvoisin (1900-1980) 1951 Jan Pienkowski. 1975, Haunted House
BLACK IN NAIVE ART



