CHIAROSCURO

Shaping Forms With Light

In art, chiaroscuro is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achieve a sense of volume in modelling three-dimensional objects and figures. Similar effects in cinema, and black and white and low-key photography, are also called chiaroscuro. Taken to its extreme, the use of shadow and contrast to focus strongly on the subject of a painting is called tenebrism.