Why Monet Never Used Black, & Why You Shouldn’t Either

Monet and other Impressionists treated color as a relationship between hues, viewer, and medium. The post argues that black is often a weaker choice for contrast because hue shifts, temperature, and context create richer depth and more lifelike results.

Reading notes

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• Monet avoided black for nearly his entire painting career, and the post uses that choice to argue for more dynamic color use in design.
• Impressionists explored the limits of paint, brushes, and canvas, and their medium shaped the blurrier look of their work.
• They placed colors next to each other to create the illusion of a desired color, much like dithering in a limited palette.
• Pointillism is presented as an extension of that approach, using dots of color to produce a different overall color effect.
• The post says the Impressionists were studying the space between subject and viewer, including how light, water, and shadow are perceived.
• Color theory is used to explain warm and cool hues, complementary colors, tints, and shades.
• Warm hues tend to advance toward the viewer, while cool hues recede.
• Tints tend to pop forward, while shades tend to recede.
• Context changes the effect of the same color, so a tint or shade does not behave the same way in every setting.
• Hue relationships can overpower simple tint or shade differences.
• Black contrast can produce vibration at the edges of a shape, while a dark hue with a related color can create a more natural sense of depth.
• In typography, the post recommends using color relationships to build hierarchy instead of defaulting to black on white.
• It gives examples where a warm dark base color and related secondary colors create hierarchy with less harsh contrast.
• For interface graphics, it recommends using richer color relationships in highlights, shadows, and text to make buttons feel more lively.