CHAPTER XIX: LIGHT AND SHADE
Chiaroscuro. - A few words about chiaroscuro and will be useful. This
is a term of great importance and frequent use with artists and writers
up to within the last thirty or forty years. It has of late become almost
unused. The reason for this was explained in the chapter on “Values.”
Nevertheless, it is well that the student should know what the word
meant, and still means. Although he may hear and use it less frequently
than if he had lived earlier in the century, the pictures, certain qualities
of which no other word expresses, still exist, and are probably as
immortal as anything in this world can be. He should know what those
qualities are, and he should understand their relation to the work of to-
day.
Chiaroscuro is described by an old writer as suggesting “a theme which is most
interesting, perhaps, in the whole range of the art of painting. Of vast importance, great
extent, and extreme intricacy. Chiaroscuro is an Italian compound word whose two
parts, chiar and oscuro, signify simply bright and obscure, or light and dark. Hence the
art or branch of art that bears the name regards all the relations of light and shade, and
this independently of coloring, notwithstanding that in painting, coloring and the clair-
obscure are of their very nature inseparable. The art of clair-obscure, therefore, teaches
the painter the disposition and arrangement in general of his lights and darks, with all
their degrees, extreme and intermediate, of tint and shade, both in single objects, as the
parts of a picture, and in combination as one whole, so as to produce the best
representation possible in the best manner possible; sensation possible in the best
manner possible; that is, so as to produce the most desirable effect upon the senses and
spirit of the observers. In a word, its end and aim are fidelity and beauty of imitation; its
means, every effect of light; chromatic harmonies and contrasts; chromatic values,
reflections; the degradations of atmospheric perspective, etc.” The italics are mine.
You see at once that this covers a pretty wide field. But it is to be again noted that the
use of chiaroscuro by the old painters meant not only the expression of the light and
shade of nature, but the so arranging of the objects and the way that the light was
permitted to fall on them, that certain parts of the picture became shadow, while the
light was concentrated in some other part or parts. In this way the arrangement of the
light and shade of a picture became a distinct element of composition, and a very
important one. The quality of “light” was something to be emphasized by contrast. It is
stated (whether truly or not) that the proportion of light to dark was according to a
definite rule or principle with certain painters, some permitting more, and some less,