Shadows in Renaissance Painting: 'Standing Between Darkness and Light'

Abstract

Defined by Leonardo as 'standing between darkness and light', shadows are and always have been everywhere, but they are not always depicted in art. Rarely shown in Early Christian and medieval art, the portrayal of shadows really comes into its own in Renaissance Italy – linked with the immense advances in scientific study of the age. The Renaissance interest in shadows and optics, as with linear perspective, demonstrates a wish to explore, explain, and depict the natural world. The role of shadow in Renaissance painting can be either the use of shading to give bodily and other forms a three-dimensionality hitherto not achieved, or the actual depiction of cast shadows, sometimes with symbolic meaning. Shadows were also considered scientifically in relation to science and the new learning (optics and astronomy), as well as the use of shadows to bring a psychological or even magical resonance to Renaissance painting – mysterious, ethereal, or even divine.