The monochrome—a single-color work of art—is highly ambiguous. For some it epitomizes purity and is art reduced to its essence. For others it is just a stunt, the proverbial emperor’s new clothes. Why are monochrome works both so admired and such an easy target of scorn? Why does a monochrome look so simple and yet is so challenging to comprehend? And what is it that drives artists to create such works?
 
In this illuminating book, Simon Morley unpacks the meanings of the monochrome as it has developed internationally over the twentieth century to today. In doing so, he also explores how artists have understood what they make, how critics variously interpret it, and how art is encountered by viewers.

Simon Morley is an artist and assistant professor at Dankook University, Republic of Korea. He is the author of Writing on the Wall: Word and Image in Modern Art and Seven Keys to Modern Art, and editor of The Sublime.

1 Introductions
2 Setting
3 Reception
4 Colour
5 Ground
6 Spiritual
7 Indefinable
8 Nothingness
9 Experiential
10 Zen
11 Material
12 Format
13 Sign
14 Idea
15 Allegorical
16 Expanded Field
17 East-Asia
18 Contemporary
19 Conclusion

References