Chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro is an artistic technique that emphasizes the contrast between light and dark to create depth and highlight specific details within a composition. Originating from the Italian words for "light" (chiaro) and "dark" (scuro), this method became prominent during the Renaissance, particularly through the works of influential artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, and Rembrandt. Chiaroscuro is used primarily in painting and black-and-white photography, enabling artists to simulate three-dimensionality by manipulating light and shadow. The technique draws the viewer's focus to illuminated areas while obscuring others, sometimes creating a dramatic effect.
In addition to its application in painting, chiaroscuro also influenced early printmaking techniques, where artists like Hans Burgkmair developed chiaroscuro woodcuts, employing multiple blocks to achieve shading effects similar to those seen in drawings. The style has a close relation to tenebrism, which relies more heavily on shadow to amplify drama and guide the viewer’s gaze. In photography, the chiaroscuro approach translates into a method known as clair obscur, focusing on contrasting light and dark to evoke drama and mystery. Overall, chiaroscuro remains a significant technique in various artistic forms, celebrated for its ability to enhance visual storytelling.
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Chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro (pronounced key-arr-uh-ski-yoo-row) is a term used to describe artwork that contrasts light and dark shades, often to highlight aspects of artistic detail. It is used in a variety of art fields, most principally in painting and black-and-white photography. Chiaroscuro comes from the Italian words chiaro, meaning "light" or "clear" and scuro, meaning "dark or "obscure." The chiaroscuro technique originated during the Renaissance and was favored by such artists as Leonardo da Vinci, El Greco, Caravaggio, and Rembrandt.
The use of chiaroscuro provides painters with the ability to use light and shadow to create the illusion of three-dimensionality. The contrast between shades is intended to obscure areas of the painting and draw the eye's attention to the lighter-toned elements. The lighter shades act like a spotlight that highlights certain figures or scenes in the image. This technique may be used to add volume to human figures through color and shading rather than lines. It was commonly used in the Renaissance as a means of expressing the holy light of Jesus.
Brief History
The first attempts at three-dimensionality were made in antiquity by Greek artists. The resulting style—called skiagraphia or sciography—can be traced to fifth-century artist Apollodoros. Artists sought to create perspective through slowly shifting gradations of light and color. The basic principles of skiagraphia were later used by the Romans and Byzantines. It was also a central tenet used in the creation of illuminated manuscripts and paintings in the Middle Ages.
The first works of chiaroscuro were done on colored paper during the early Renaissance. The color of the pages themselves, which were typically shades of tan, served as the middle tones of these drawings. The artist then simulated lighter tones by adding white gouache (a type of paint similar to watercolors) and darker shades by creating crosshatching marks with a pen or a dark wash (in which the artist uses a brush that is heavy with ink).
This artistic aesthetic was soon adopted by early Renaissance artists, including Tommaso Masaccio, who used the technique in such paintings as The Tribute Money (1426) and The Holy Trinity (1428). However, the term is most commonly associated with Mannerist and Baroque artists of the middle Renaissance period of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. This link is due to the tremendous influence of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Caravaggio used chiaroscuro techniques to heighten both the intense modeling of the depicted figures and the overall dramatic impact of his paintings.
Although in Caravaggio's work the source of the light is not always evident in the painting itself, it has a major bearing on the image. It emphasizes the positions of his figures, the contours of their faces and expressions, and the texture of their skin. The style was adopted by many followers of Caravaggio, an artistic school often called the Caravaggisti. It spread to Northern Europe where it was used to great effect by such painters as Peter Paul Rubens and Rembrandt van Rijn. It was similarly favored in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by artists from the Rococo and Romantic Expressionist movements.
Overview
Chiaroscuro is similar in aesthetic to tenebrism, which some academics describe as a form of chiaroscuro. Tenebrism is a technique that relies on the heavy use of shadows to obscure parts of the image. This is done to bring the viewer's focus onto specific elements of the painting. In tenebrist paintings, much of the image is obscured in darkness except for a small area of light. Tenebrist works use lighting for dramatic emphasis, whereas chiaroscuro works rely on light to create the illusion of three-dimensionality. In many Renaissance works of tenebrism, the light often has no natural source; rather, it is intended to depict a moment of revelation, like the light of God. It was often used in works of religious allegory, particularly by Caravaggio.
For instance, Caravaggio's Judith Beheading Holofernes (1599–1602) depicts a moment from the Christian Bible’s Book of Judith in which the Hebrew heroine executes the Assyrian General Holofernes to spare her community from attack. In Caravaggio's painting, Holofernes's tent is shrouded in inky blackness except for a dim red canvas behind the figures in the forefront. Judith's maid is cast in shade, as are the lower bodies of Judith and Holofernes. In the center of the painting, Judith's beheading of Holofernes is cast in bright color. This subject was a popular image of tenebrist studies. Other paintings by Artemisia Gentileschi (1614–1620) and Trophime Bigot (1640) similarly follow Caravaggio's style to portray this story. Both present an intense envelope of darkness that is punctuated by a single flash of light, a contrast that emphasizes the brutal nature of Holofernes's murder.
The chiaroscuro style served as inspiration for early sixteenth-century woodcut artists, such as Ugo da Carpi. These printers imitated the design principles used in chiaroscuro drawings to create depth in their own printed images. The chiaroscuro woodcut style enabled printers to reproduce images that were more complex than simple black-and-white block images. The first artist to use this technique was German printmaker Hans Burgkmair in 1509. Burgkmair used a process in which a line block was used alongside one or more tone blocks, which added shading. Line blocks were typically flat blocks that were level with the print paper so that they created black spaces. Each individual tone block was used to print a different colored shade. While the print artists were not seeking the same artistic aesthetic as painters of the era, they nonetheless called the resulting images chiaroscuro woodcuts because they recalled the techniques used in early chiaroscuro drawings done on colored paper. For instance, in Hendrick Goltzius's Pluto (1580–1590), the chiaroscuro effect makes the fire burning in the background behind Pluto more visible. In German printer Hans Baldung Grien's Scene of Witchcraft (1510), the chaos and dismal imagery are exaggerated by the mixed shades of tone. By the seventeenth century, more advanced printing techniques caused the chiaroscuro method to fall out of favor.
In photography, chiaroscuro is also known as clair obscur or extreme low key photography. Like chiaroscuro painting, it is intended to offer a contrast between lit and obscured areas. It may be used in still life, portrait, and fine art photography. The aesthetic in chiaroscuro photography is the same as in chiaroscuro painting; it is meant to create depth in a two-dimensional image while drawing the viewer's attention to a particular area of the image. However, while Renaissance artists often sought to promote a sense of divine presence in the depicted image, chiaroscuro photography has associations with mystery and drama.
Bibliography
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