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WORLDS TOP ARTISTS
For top creative practitioners, see:
Best Artists of All Time.
For a list of the best examples of
Fine Art Painting, by the
world's top artists, see below:
Greatest Paintings Ever
Oils, watercolours, mixed
media from 1300-present.
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What is the Difference Between Sfumato
and Chiaroscuro?
As noted, chiaroscuro involves the
combined use of light and shadow. However, the meeting point of these
two values may give rise to sharp lines or contours. Leonardo da Vinci
pioneered the technique of sfumato in order to soften the transition
from light to dark. In his notes on painting he says that light and shade
should blend "without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke. (In
Italian, sfumato means "vanished gradually like smoke").
Sfumato typically involves the use of several translucent glazes
to create a gradual tonal spectrum from dark to light, thus eliminating
undesirable sharp contours. Sfumato is exemplified in the soft
facial shading on the face of The Mona Lisa (c.1503, Louvre). The
technique of sfumato was later perfected by Giorgione (1477-1510)
and Correggio (1490-1534).
Origins and History of Chiaroscuro
The first use of chiaroscuro-style three-dimensional
shading (known as "skiagraphia" or "shadow-painting"
in Ancient Greece) is traditionally ascribed to Apollodoros, the noted
painter of 5th century Athens. Enduring in a somewhat primitive form during
the era of Byzantine art (c.400-1400), the technique was refined in the
West during the late Middle Ages and by 1400 was a standard feature in
both gospel illuminations and painting.
Chiaroscuro During the Renaissance
Chiaroscuro in 15th century Northern
Europe became an essential technique for all religious painters following
the visions of Saint Bridget of Sweden, who claimed to have seen light
being emitted by the Christ-child Jesus. In their consequent depictions
of the Nativity and other scenes involving the infant Jesus, Renaissance
artists such as Hugo van der Goes (d.1482) frequently made this holy light
the predominant source of illumination, relying heavily on chiaroscuro
in the process. A compositional approach which was duly extended to the
adult Jesus in scenes of the Last Supper by several painters including
Tintoretto (1518-94). If most
religious chiaroscuro during the Renaissance era served to create
scenes of serenity and calm, Mannerism painters such as Caravaggio, Paolo
Veronese (1528-88), Giovanni Baglione (1566-1643), Georges de La Tour
(1593-1652) and others - tended to use it for more dramatic effect after
earlier efforts by the likes of Ugo da Carpi (1455-1523).
Chiaroscuro During the Baroque
Of all these artists it was Caravaggio
who deployed dramatic illumination to its greatest effect with his style
of tenebrism - an idiom taken up in the 17th century by Spanish
artists like Francisco
de Zurbaran (1598-1664) and Jusepe
de Ribera (1591-1652), and also by the German-born Rome-based painter
Adam Elsheimer (1578-1610), whose nocturnal scenes occupied a mid-ground
between pure chiaroscuro and pure tenebrism. It was left
to the two greatest Northern European painters, the Flemish Peter
Paul Rubens and Dutch Rembrandt van Rijn to take chiaroscuro
to new heights of dramatic three-dimensionality: Rubens, in works like
Descent From the Cross (1608-12, Onze-Lieve-Vrouve-Kerk, Antwerp)
and The Consequences of War (1638, Palazzo Pitti); Rembrandt, in
paintings like The Anatomy Lecture of Dr Nicolaes Tulip (1632,
Mauritshuis), The Sacrifice of Isaac (1635, The Hermitage), The
Night Watch (1642, Rijksmusem) and Bathsheba (1654, Louvre). Other
noted exponents of 17th century Baroque chiaroscuro included the Dutch
Realists Gerrit van Honthorst (1592-1656), Gerrit Dou (1613-75), the Flemish
painter Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678), and the Bolognese artist Il Guercino
(Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) (1591-1666).
Chiaroscuro During the 18th Century
and early 19th Century
The tradition was maintained during the
Rococo period by painters like Fragonard
(1732-1806) in works such as The Swing (1767, Wallace Collection)
and The Bolt (1777, Louvre), and by Watteau
(1684-1721) in the leafy backgrounds of his fetes galantes. It was also
exemplified in The Death of Marat (1793, Museum of Fine Arts Brussels)
by the neoclassicist Jacques-Louis
David (1748-1825); and in La Grande Odalisque (1814, Louvre)
by the classicist Ingres.
In England, chiaroscuro was relied upon by the Romantic expressionist
Fuseli (1741-1825)
in Lady MacBeth Sleepwalking (1784, Louvre), and by Joseph Wright
of Derby (1734-97) in The Blacksmith's Shop (1771, Derby Art Gallery).
In Spain, Goya used a variety of
light and heavy chiaroscuro in works like Christ on the Cross (1780,
Prado Museum) century, Nude Maja (1800, Prado), Saturn Devouring
His Son (1821, Prado).
Paintings employing chiaroscuro
effects hang in all the best art museums
of the world.
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