Chiaroscuro

I recently came across the term chiaroscuro which stems from the Italian words chiaro (meaning“clear” or “bright”) and oscuro (meaning “obscure” or “dark”), and refers to the arrangement of light and shade in a work of art. 

Raft of the Medusa

I appreciate how this word comes through in the work of Geracault's Raft of the Medusa, depicting the horrors in the aftermath of a shipwreck. Yet, it is considered an icon in French Romanticism as it culminates with a glimmer of hope at the horizon of a possible rescue ship. The juxtaposition of lighting and shading do not cancel each other out but instead reveal the moments of intense suffering in the context of Eternal hope. 

Rain, Steam and Speed

J.M.W. Turner is another painter that uniquely showcased chiaroscuro with the convergence of light and shade. Turner was particularly taken with finding ways to integrate Romantic idealism along with his admiration for empirical science. Unlike Blake, Turner embraced the industrial revolution as depicted in his paintings of locomotives and steamships. In his classic Snow Storm, with its “spiraling smoke, surging waves and swirling cloud produce a centrifugal vortex that engulfs the spectator” (Sam Smith), there is also a homage to the modern ship which survives the forces of nature. 

Snow Storm

The “huge, powerful masses of alternating light and dark swirl around an incandescent center of white light” (Ogle), models the asymmetries of nature. Moreover, the classic symmetrical Euclidean geometry is replaced with the asymmetrical irregular arcs in the form of a vortex or spiral. Things are going somewhere albeit with an emphasis of science over spirit. Turner's version of hope is one of man’s conquest over nature in place of one's surrender to Nature. (As an aside, Turner's disposition was mostly materialist, which comes through in Timothy Spall's curmudgeonly portrayal of him in the film Mr. Turner.)

For Turner, “a cosmos generated by the interplay of limitless forces lay in his liberation of color in the depiction of light” (Ogle). He believed the asymmetrical forces of technology would liberate man, where the shadow that falls between the potency and the act could be diminished. 

Yet, as we are more engulfed by immanent technological forces, we can now see deeper shadows emerging. Our emphasis may need to turn again to surrendering to the “incandescent center of white light” as transcendence — or a move upward in order to move forward.