Flat Black in Picture Books and Art

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

The Brimful Book by Platt & Munk

Menu created by Margaret Macdonald (Lighthouse, Glasgow) 1911

An Arab Interior Arthur Melville 1881

BLACK WATER

The black of the water below is unexpected but hugely effective as a contrast against the yellows, greens and blues.

‘Garden-land’ by Robert W. Chambers. 1907. Illustrations by Harrison Cady

BLACK OF THE FOREST

I love that the forest below looks like colour laid upon black. The darkness of the forest ‘shines’ through.

Stories the Iroquois tell their children by Mabel Powers illustrated by W Fletcher White 1917

For the illustrations below, Harrison Cady uses flat blacks for the background line of trees, the foreground foliage and also on the characters’ clothing.

Thorton Burgess Animal Stories illustrated by Harrison Cady from 1942

James Whitcomb Riley (1849 – 1916) All the Year Round, 1912

THE BLACK OF LINOGRAVURE (LINOCUT)

Certain types of art will naturally result in more darkness in the finished work.

Vasily Kandinsky (1866, Russie – 1944, France), Le Miroir, 1907, linogravure, 322 x 158 mm. The British Museum

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

Franz Wacik, Austrian. Born 1883, died 1938

Piero Bernardini, 1941

Roger Duvoisin, 1944

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

Virginia Frances Sterrett (1900-1931) USA, Old French Fairy Tales c1920 by Sophie Ségur

Virginia Sterrett’s black and white illustrations for Old French Fairy Tales c1920 by Sophie Ségur

Rosanie or The Inconstant prince, Kay Nielsen 1913

Marjorie Miller [Estes] (1899 – 1995) 1931 Queen Of The Night illustration

Dorothy Lathrop

Incidentally, here is a similar palette:

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.

Art by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite (1916) Fairy Islands

Fairyland 1931 Ida Rentoul Outhwaite

Dance of Winter and Gnomes Arthur Rackham, 1919

Adrienne Adams (American,1906-2002) – The Halloween Party, 1974

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

S.W. Reynolds — Vogue magazine — 1927

Johnny Gruelle, 1916

Art by George Carlson (c 1919) from the book, BELGIAN FAIRY TALES

Art Deco Illustration, Starstruck, by Erté

Edmund Dulac (1882 – 1953), The Ice-Maiden, watercolour and gouache, frontispiece of The Dreamer of Dreams by Queen Marie of Romania, 1915, Hodder & Stoughton, London, New York and Toronto

FABIANO, Fabien (Jules COUP de FRÉJAC, 1882-1962). ‘The Coquette’, “Shadowland”, Vol. 7, Nº 6, 1923

Descending the Stairs, J C Leyendecker, 1929

David Palladini for the Aquarian Tarot

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

Tove Jansson Sleeping in the Roots, 1930s

This illustration by Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) for ‘St. Nicholas an Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks’ includes a self-portrait in the lower left corner

Katie Country Mouse Goes to London by Philip Mendoza

1923 Boys and Girls Of Book Land by Nora Archibald Smith Illustrated by Jesse Wilcox Smith Publisher David McKay Co

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.

Concept art for Disney c.1950s by Mary Blair The Little Mermaid

Mary Blair

Eyvind Earle (1916-2000) American artist, author and illustrator, noted for his contribution to the background illustration and styling of Disney animated films in the 1950s

Elige Tu Mapa, Encuentra Tu Camino by Eyvind Earle

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

Poster for Fromme’s Calendar (1899) by Koloman Moser

A Comet’s Journey, 1844 JJ Grandville 1844

Poster Art Agriculture c. 1930-1936

Leonetto Cappiello

Achille Mauzan, c.1920

Jean d’Ylen, 1920s

Mario Broggi, 1922

Kushida Mitsuhiro, poster for The Little Match Girl, 1967

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.

from The Fireside Book of Children’s Songs, illustrated by John Alcorn, compiled by Marie Winn and adapted by Allan Miller, published in 1966 by Simon & Schuster, New York