Back Home
Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Search in posts
Search in pages

More results

  • Histories of Art
      • Prehistoric
        • Overview of Prehistoric
          • Paleolithic
          • Neolithic
      • Africa
        • Overview of Africa
            • East Africa
            • West Africa
            • North Africa
            • Southern Africa
            • Central Africa
      • Americas
        • Overview of Americas to 1900
            • North America to 1500
            • North America 1500 – 1900
            • South America to 1500
            • South America 1500 – 1900
      • Asia
        • Overview of Asia
            • Hinduism and Buddhism
            • China
            • Japan
            • Korea
            • South Asia
            • Afghanistan
            • Southeast Asia
            • The Himalayas
      • Ancient Mediterranean
        • Overview of Ancient Mediterranean
            • Ancient Near East
            • Egyptian
            • Aegean
            • Greek
            • Nabataean
            • Etruscan
            • Roman
            • Palmyra
      • Medieval Europe & Byzantine
        • Overview of Medieval Europe + Byzantium
            • A beginner’s guide
            • Christianity and art
            • Judaism and art
            • The medieval book
            • Early Christian
            • Byzantine
            • Carolingian
            • Ottonian
            • Romanesque
            • Gothic Art
            • The crusades
      • The Islamic World
        • Overview of the Islamic World
          • Early Period
          • Medieval Period
          • Later period
      • Europe 1300-1800
        • Overview of Europe 1300 – 1800
              • Italy: 14th century
              • Italy: 15th century
              • Italy: 16th century
              • Northern Europe: 15th century
              • Northen Europe: 16th century
              • Spain: 15th and 16th century
              • Reformation and Counter-Reformation
              • Baroque: 17th century
              • Rococo: early to mid 18th century
              • Neoclassicism: late 18th century
              • British: 18th century
      • Europe 1800-1900
        • Overview of Europe: 19th century
            • Romanticism
            • Early Photography
            • Victorian art
            • Realism
            • Second Empire
            • Impressionism
            • Post-Impressionism
            • Symbolism / Art Nouveau
            • The Peredvizhniki
      • Oceania
        • Overview of Oceania
            • Lapita
            • Polynesia
            • Melanesia
            • Micronesia
            • Australia
      • Modernisms 1900-1980
        • Overview of Modernisms 1900 – 1980
            • A beginner’s guide
            • Fauvism + Expressionism
            • Cubism + Early Abstraction
            • Dada + Surrealism
            • German art between the wars
            • Latin American modernism
            • American art to WWII
            • Postwar American art
            • Postwar European art
            • Conceptual + Performance art
            • Post Minimalism
            • Global vanguard
            • Architecture + Design
      • Global cultures 1980 to now
        • Overview of Global Cultures 1980 – now
            • Appropriation and ideological critique
            • Identity and the body
            • Banality and kitsch
            • Ritual, spirituality and transcendence
            • Histories real and imagined
  • Guides
      • beginner guides – start here
          • Looking at art – art allows us to see through the eyes of others
          • Approaches to art history – in our visual world, studying art’s history couldn’t be more important
          • Tools for understanding religion in art – for millennia, images have acted as a bridge to the invisible and transcendent
          • Understanding museums – History and interpretation
      • Courses and syllabi – short and long guided tours through art’s history
          • Syllabi, AP and A-level art history – for the classroom
          • Seeing America – Bringing the long history of the United States to life.
          • ARCHES – At Risk Cultural Heritage Series: Many regions of the world struggle to protect cultural heritage in the face of numerous challenges.
          • Art Appreciation – This course is about you, and your interaction with art.
          • Understanding museums – millions visit museums every year. Why do we do it?
          • Short courses – learn about a period or topic in art history in less than 2 hours
          • Creating + conserving – The materials and techniques used by artists, and the work of conservation.
      • Across cultures – expanding the boundaries of art history in the classroom
          • Across cultures – a global, interconnected world is not as recent as we think
          • Expanding the Renaissance initiative – highlighting overlooked subjects, materials, artists, groups, and locales
      • Art by location – Traveling? Find Smarthistory content by country.
        • OVERVIEW
          • Austria
          • France
          • Germany
          • Greece
          • Italy
          • India
          • Japan
          • Mexico
          • Netherlands
          • Spain
          • Turkey
          • United States
          • United Kingdom
      • Smarthistory books – download and print
          • Download books for free
      • How-to guides – make Smarthistory-style videos
          • Video creation guide
  • About
      • Why Smarthistory matters
      • Content editors and contributors
      • A Smarthistory timeline
      • Board of Advisors and Board of Trustees
      • Supporters
      • Contact Us
      • PaikSeeing America – Bringing the long history of the United States to life—using works of art as primary sources.
      • ARCHES thumnbnailARCHES – A mini-course on endangered cultural heritage around the globe
      • ERIExpanded Renaissance Initiative – Spain was part of the Renaissance, but you’d never know by looking at art history textbooks.
  • Commons
  • Support
    • NewDonateDonate – Help Smarthistory continue to make a difference
    • NewEssayContribute an essay – Help make art history relevant and engaging
Search

Start here

Looking at art
Browse this content
Why art matters
why look at art?
How art can help you analyze
The Power to Look
Describing what you see: sculpture
Elements of Art
Line
Shape and Form
Color
Space
Texture
Surface and Depth
Light and shadow
Principles of composition
Balance, symmetry, and emphasis
Movement
Proportion and scale
Pattern, repetition and rhythm, variety and unity
Approaches to art history
Browse this content
An introduction to art history
What is art history and where is it going?
Introduction to art historical analysis
How to do visual (formal) analysis
Art historical analysis with Goya's Third of May, 1808
A brief history of the representation of the body in Western painting
A brief history of the representation of the body in Western sculpture
The language of art history
Naturalism, realism, abstraction and idealization
Contrapposto explained
Foreshortening explained
Chiaroscuro explained
Linear perspective explained
Atmospheric perspective explained
Classical orders of architecture explained
Brief histories of art and culture
Common questions about dates
A brief history of the cultures of Asia
A brief history of Western culture
What maps tell us
Questions in art history
What is cultural heritage?
Where are the women artists?
Must art be beautiful?
Is there a difference between art and craft?
What's the point of realism?
What made art valuable: then and now?
Current issues in art history
Why you don't like art history
Art about Migration
What does art tell us about gender?
Should Art Be Publicly Funded?
What does resistance look like?
The Case for Copying
The case for nudity
Trending artists
Behind the Banksy Stunt
Tools for understanding museums
Browse this content
The case for museums
A brief history of the art museum
Museums and politics: the Louvre, Paris
Art Museums and (Art) Objects
Artists in and against the Museum
The changing social functions of art museums
Looking at Art Museums
Remake the Met
How museums shape meaning
Tools for understanding religion in art
Browse this content
Beginner's guide
The five major world religions
A brief history of religion in art
Christianity
Christianity, an introduction
A new pictorial language: the image in Early Medieval art
Standard scenes from the life of Christ in art
Architecture and liturgy
The audacity of Christian art
The problem with Christ
Christ is not like a snail: Signs and symbols
Putting God in his place: here, everywhere, and nowhere
Time and eternity: Yesterday, today, and always
This world and the next: Christ on earth; Christ in heaven
So near and yet so far: visions and thresholds
Unspeakable images: when words fail
Islam
Introduction to Islam
The Five Pillars of Islam
Hajj
The Kaaba
Introduction to mosque architecture
Hinduism
Hinduism and Buddhism, an introduction
Beliefs made visible: Hindu art in South Asia
Hindu temples
Varanasi: sacred city
Buddhism
The historical Buddha
The stupa
Images of Enlightenment: Aniconic vs. Iconic Depictions of the Buddha in India
Four Buddhas at the American Museum of Natural History
Bodh Gaya: center of the Buddhist world
Beliefs made visible: Buddhist art in South Asia
Buddhist Monasteries
Judaism
Judaism, an introduction
Jewish history to the middle ages
Jewish history 1750 to WW II
Jewish history in the post-war period
For the very beginner
Browse this content
Ancient Greek and Roman art
Medieval and Byzantine art
Renaissance art
Baroque and Rococo
Nineteenth-century art
Introduction to Twentieth-Century Art
Introduction to Contemporary Art

Chiaroscuro explained

by Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

 

Cite this page as: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Chiaroscuro explained," in Smarthistory, November 30, 2016, accessed August 24, 2019, https://smarthistory.org/chiaroscuro-explained/.

At Smarthistory, we’re on a mission to open museums and cultural sites up to the world. We’re creating world-class resources on art and cultural objects for learners from around the globe—for free.

  • About Smarthistory
  • Smarthistory’s blog
  • Contribute an essay
  • Content editors and contributors
  • Donate
  • Follow us on Instagram
  • Subscribe to our newsletter
  • Contact Us

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

· © 2019 Smarthistory · Designed by Press Customizr · Powered by ·