Word Finder - chiaroscuro

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An artistic technique developed during the Renaissance, referring to the use of exaggerated light contrasts in order to create the illusion of volume.

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A monochrome picture made by using several different shades of the same color.

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The use of blocks of wood of different colors in a woodcut.

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A photographic technique in which one side of, for example, a face is well lit and the other is in shadow.

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Possessing the qualities of a work of chiaroscuro.

His colouring for the most part is unpleasing, partly owing to his violent treatment of skies with crude blues and orange, and his chiaroscuro usually is much exaggerated.

But before accepting this conclusion as final, one must not lose sight of the fact that the so-called chiaroscuro engraving was at the height of its use in Italy at the same time that embassies from thc Christians in Japan visited Rome, and that it is thus possiblc that the suggestion at least may have been derived from Europe.

Somewhat more successful has been an attemptinaugurated by Hashimoto GahO and Kawabata Gyokushoto combine the art of the West with that of Japan by adding to the latter the chiaroscuro and the linear perspective of the former.

So perfectly does the modern Japanese embroiderer elaborate his scheme of values that all the essential elements of pictorial effects chiaroscuro, aerial perspective and atmosphere are present in his work.

The act was further enhanced by the trickery of lighting contrasts which brought to mind the effect of dramatic chiaroscuro.

It has been suggested that he deliberately eschewed chiaroscuro because his pictures, destined invariably to hang in an alcove, were required to be equally effective from every aspect and had also to form part of a decorative scheme.

And these now rare and coveted pieces remain to rebuke us for our modern preference for the mechanical and unnatural chiaroscuro of photogravure - the successor and destroyer of the graver's art.

We may name, besides those already specified - in the Naples Museum, " St Euphemia," a fine early work; in Casa Melzi, Milan, the " Madonna and Child with Chanting Angels " (1461); in the Tribune of the Uffizi, Florence, three pictures remarkable for scrupulous finish; in the Berlin Museum, the " Dead Christ with two Angels "; in the Louvre, the two celebrated pictures of mythic allegory- " Parnassus " and " Minerva Triumphing over the Vices "; in the National Gallery, London, the " Agony in the Garden," the " Virgin and Child Enthroned, with the Baptist and the Magdalen," a late example; the monochrome of " Vestals," brought from Hamilton Palace; the " Triumph of Scipio " (or Phrygian Mother of the Gods received by the Roman Commonwealth), a tempera in chiaroscuro, painted only a few months before the master's death; in the Brera, Milan, the " Dead Christ, with the two Maries weeping," a remarkable tour de force in the way of foreshortening, which, though it has a stunted appearance, is in correct technical perspective as seen from all points of view.

The 16th century boasts the names of Bernardino Fungai, Guidoccio Cossarelli, Giacomo Pacchiarotto, Girolamo del Pacchia and especially Baldassare Peruzzi (1481-1537), who while especially celebrated for his frescoes and studies in perspective and chiaroscuro was also an architect of considerable attainments (see Rome); Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, otherwise known as 11 Sodoma (1477-1549), who, born at Vercelli in Piedmont, and trained at Milan in the school of Leonardo da Vinci, came to Siena in 1504 and there produced some of his finest works, while his influence on the art of the place was considerable; Domenico Beccafumi, otherwise known as Micharino (1486-1550), noted for the Michelangelesque daring of his designs; and Francesco Vanni.