What is chiaroscuro?

(bright piano music)

- [Beth] If you want your
painting or your drawing,

to look realistic, to look naturalistic,

to look like the observable world,

then a technique that art
historians call modeling

or chiaroscuro, is critical.

- [Steven] Chiaroscuro
means simply light and dark.

And what we're talking
about is the modulation

or the transition from light to dark.

When we look at a round object in space,

parts of it will be more
brightly illuminated,

and parts of it, especially
as they move away from us

will be more in shade,

and the ability to render that
on a two-dimensional surface

on a canvas can create the
illusion of volume and mass,

of a thing in space.

- [Beth] And here we're looking
at Titian's Venus of Urbino,

this lovely nude reclining
on a bed and we immediately

get the sense that this is
a three-dimensional body.

- [Steven] Look for
instance at her right thigh.

It's bright at the top, but
as the knee turns, it turns

to shadow.

It doesn't do it sharply,
but as a result her shin

seems to recede into space.

- [Beth] Or we can even
follow the line of her thigh

down toward the bed,

and see how it moves from
brighter illumination into shadow.

- [Steven] Now Titian
was able to achieve this

with such delicacy because
he is using oil paint,

which allows for a very
find modulation of tone.

- [Beth] But we see this
with Renaissance artists

going back for example, to Giotto,

all the way through the artists
of the high Renaissance,

the artists of the Venetian
Renaissance like Titian.

- [Steven] If we looked back at earlier

medieval representations in Italy,

we would often see line
used to define the folds

or the bunching of drapery.

But here, if you look at
the sheet under the figure,

you can see that he's
used only light and shadow

to create the folds and
creases in that cloth.

- [Beth] And that older
linear way of representing

the three-dimensions of
drapery is not as naturalistic

as this use of modeling or
chiaroscuro that we see in the

Renaissance.

- [Steven] And there you
have it, chiaroscuro.

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