the treatment of light and shade in drawing and painting.
Chiaroscuro is a high-contrast lighting technique that utilises a low-key lighting setup to achieve contrast between the subject and a dark background. Read on to find out more, and discover how you could learn this technique (and more) for free at our upcoming TFC workshops.
A visual element in art, chiaroscuro (Italian for lightdark) is defined as a bold contrast between light and dark). A certain amount of chiaroscuro is the effect of light modelling in painting where 3-dimensional volume is suggested by highlights and shadows. It first appeared in 15th century painting in Italy and Flanders (Holland), but true chiaroscuro
developed during the 16th century, in Mannerism and in Baroque art.
Dark subjects were dramatically lighted by a shaft of light from a single constricted and often unseen source was a compositional device seen in the paintings of old masters such as Caravaggio and Rembrandt.
The set up:
Chiaroscuro is when you have split lighting and one half of your face is more visible than the other and there is shadowing on one side of the face. Its meant to darken the background and highlight the subject in the foreground, drawing the viewer’s focus and attention, Chiaroscuro balances high-contrast light and shade to give the appearance of depth, creating an enhanced or more dramatic effect. Chiaroscuro creates three-dimensionality on a two-dimensional plane, darkening the background and highlighting the subject in the foreground, drawing the viewer’s focus and attention.
MY OWN PHOTOSHOOT:
Here we used more than one light to shine onto the model to create this half lighting on the face, and had someone hold a reflector to the side so that the light would hit certain place of the face, this made the photo look very dark lighted especially with the back background however I do feel that the dark background makes the photo look better then if it had a bright background as the shadows on the face wouldn’t sit right,
I really like how this turned out as you can clearly see the half shadow on the left side of the face, the models facial expression makes the photo look even better as she was always smiling and sometimes having a natural face can change the whole plot of the photo. I feel as though the shadow is exactly in the middle which makes the photo look a lot better than if the shadow was more to the left/right. To get this effect I had to have some help to hold reflectors on the side of the models face so that the light would bounce off of the reflector onto the models face to create that shadow effect. If I were to do this again I would have liked to crop the photo more centred to get a more symmetrical look. I have put the photo in black and white as there wasn’t much colour in the photo anyways, the black and white tone makes the photo look more modern, however chiaroscuro is more of an old type of photography used, therefore making it black and makes it more original to me. I really like how this turned out as you can clearly identify what type of photograph it is and i feel that the black and white effect makes the features of the photograph look a lot more brighter and clearer. However if i were to do this again i would have liked to make the model stand more in the centre of the camera so that it looks more professional.
Chiaroscuro is a very old type of art where dark subjects were dramatically lighted by a shaft of light, certain places of the model and the surrounding has lighted up places.
For example, here on this painting there are certain features that are quite dark and very difficult to see and there are brighter places of the model which represents the key features of each painting/photograph. As you can see is that each models/ persons face is very clear and things like their trousers are less viewable as they are less important and not that nice to look at, however their faces hold many key features, also one of the models bodies are quite brightly lit which could help us understand the situation that’s going on.
