CHIAROSCURO. – In the perception of objects, it is determined by the contrast between illuminated and shadowed parts. In art, one says that objects are rendered in chiaroscuro when their plastic values are represented through the various gradations of a single hue. Drawings and engravings are, in general, based on this system; but all pictorial techniques, when using a single color, can serve to execute c. or “monochromes.”
C. is also an essential part of polychrome painting, which would be unable to render relief unless it reproduced the variations undergone by colors according to whether they are more or less illuminated. In certain periods, painters expressed themselves by using pure color, without the volumes acquiring definite plasticity through chiaroscuro; this is the tendency proper to classical art before the 5th century, and it is found among the Byzantines, Persians, Indians, and, generally, the peoples of the Far East. Classical art after the 5th century, and Western art in general, do not, on the other hand, renounce—even when addressing the problem of color—the plasticity of bodies obtained with the aid of chiaroscuro. Opposed to the concept of a painting based on chiaroscuro values, in which the illuminated parts tend toward white and the shadowed parts toward black, is that of tonal painting, that is, painting which, following the example of the great Venetians and with significant contributions from modern movements such as the Impressionists, Macchiaioli, and others, bases representation
on arrangements of “tones.” “Tone” is the value that individual colors acquire according to the quantity of light they absorb and consequently reflect.