Michelangelo mixed the pigments in the highest contrast to create consistently realistic luminance, thus producing an artful three dimensionality on a two dimensional canvas. Looking at the images in Livingstone, one print of the original and one of the black and white, it’s really impressive to see how unmistakable and clear the shading is. “Luminance is necessary to perceive depth,” which is clearly what Michelangelo was striving for and accomplished quite successfully. Trying to achieve depth and three dimensionality made me think of Mondrian’s striving for a perfectly flat, two-dimensional image. However, he did seem to use pure colors, which have varied luminance. Brightness distribution over the whole visual field helps to orient objects in space. So a large, bright red section might seem much farther forward than a small blue square underneath it. Also, the local schematic would have impacted the changes in luminance, thus creating the perception of depth.

Our visual systems are able to process thousands of luminance levels with a finite number of excitatory cells. Because of the center/surround organization of the retinal ganglion cells and the thalamic cells, they respond to abrupt changes, in this instance, in changes of luminance. The visual system organizes brighter areas and darker areas in each area of the painting, rather than constructing an entire gradient from the whole visual field. Rembrandt was able to successfully manipulate luminance by creating gradual shifts in the background and using sharp local changes to increase contrast. Similarly, Daddi used luminance changes to enhance the throne, painted in perspective. The alternating lights and darks and highlights make the curvature of the seat perceivable.

Arnheim’s discussion of the location of the light source, either inside or beyond the painting, was interesting. The idea of the objects “becoming enlightened” by way of contact with the light source was really intriguing. Bringing the viewer’s attention to significant objects without throwing off the balance or meaning of a piece can be a tricky process. But in The Holy Family, Rembrandt uses lights and shadows to create a dynamic piece. The “glowing” book seems to make no sense until Joseph’s gigantic shadow lends to the location of the light source. In addition, that the illuminated book and the pale pink cherubs in the top left corner both stand out against dark shadows. Mary’s face is also brighter as it is caught between the reflections of the angels and the (good) book.

I've just finished a painting that I adapted from a black and white photograph. As you all know, a

B &W photograph can have some confusing shadows, especially if you're trying to paint them in color. I too am guilty of undermining the importance of shadows, but I have to say that once I added ( what I thought was going to be a big reddish black mistake) the arm it was on and the microphone it was from seemed to pop! It all came to life and started to look like a real painting.

Shadows and Light

It was difficult separating my interest in architecture from Arnheim’s chapter of Light, since light and shadows play such a significant part in the experience of architecture. And I find it interesting that Arnheim distinctly notes that while light is prominent in causes of visual perception, light is “more than just the physical cause of what we see…it is the most fundamental and powerful of human experiences.” And this is precisely where light fits into architecture—it is not simply an object, although the unveiling aspect of light does reveal a surfacing of texture, depth, and form of a space, but foremost it is towards an experience. It is fascinating how the energy of a space can become diminished or sustained through the blending of light and shadows and we feel it perhaps most poignantly in our childhood homes. For example, the light which marks the interior of the home is simultaneously cozy and remote which is in part due to the contrasting darkness. Void and presence, interior and exterior, become part of the bodily experience and through this blending of light, a room is transformed into an embodied, sensory place. Demonstrating quite clearly this ‘phenomenon’ is the opening pages of Proust’s Swann’s Way, in which the narrator is desperately trying to fall asleep against the disorientating effects of shadows, “ But my sadness was only increased by this since the mere change in lighting destroyed the familiarity which my bedroom had acquired for me (9).” The lighting of homes offers profound experiences and I find it truly uncanny walking in residential neighborhoods at night when rooms becomes visible through illumination. Not only do you see the depth and texture of a room but you see where the shadows creep and fall.

But what happens when we lose our confidence in the mystery and depth of shadows? Like the sculpture Arnheim noted in the modern museum galleries, architectural spaces also become “murdered” by a flooding of illumination. Depth created by shadows projects a qualitative dimensionality to space, which establishes itself as distinct from the geometry of a given place. In turn, the converging of geometrical properties and lighting create an environment, which affects the entire body experience. However, in spaces that are flooded by light, for example office cubicles and classrooms, the play of depth and texture become paralyzed and erased of all diversity. In work places such as these, shadows are deemed inefficient to the atmosphere of production. It is no wonder that people working in such places are unhappy! As Arnheim noted, light gives form but in aggressively lighted spaces, appearances are forced without form. Without form, without texture, and without shadows which lead us into place, the site disembodies and disturbs the relation between body and architectural space.

shadows and matisse

I really enjoyed the Livingstone reading for this week. Having all of those images makes what she is saying so much easier to understand, and I find it much more easy to concentrate on than Arnheim. I liked the way she began by saying simply that our default assumption is that the light source is coming from above, and the simple shading examples she gave (the spheres) were fantastic - I kept turning my book upside down over and over. I don't know much about art from before the renaissance, but I could easily see what Livingstone was talking about when comparing the images in the chapter -- earlier artists tried to achieve a wider range of luminanace by adding white to some pigments, and after reading it it kind of makes sense why they looked so choppy and disjointed to me.


I especially enjoyed the Matisse images at the end of the chaper, after reading about the poor reaction of Monet's work it reinvigorated me to see Matisse's bright colors and fascinating exploration. I couldn't help looking up more and more of his portraits.

The part of the Arnheim reading that I found the most interesting was the section on shadow. I typically take them for granted, but they are a huge part of some people life. I am not sure if I agree, however, with the way that he thinks about attached and cast shadows. I agree that attached shadows are an integral part of the object and can be seen as an outgrowth of the object, but it also is the one that some people take the least notice of. And I don't think I agree that cast shadows are always an imposition/interference. Unless I misread it and he is referring only to some types of art? Because I do not think that is true in everyday life, and not in art because there are many types of art that have beautiful cast shadows.

short example

Finally after all this time I think we can start to talk about artist’s intent. Color, shape, and object placement can convey a certain something, however light, as Arnheim points out, is one of the most active informational sources in our life, Light is easily taken for granted in our day to day existence, as we perceive it to be everywhere and when it is not or in limited supply with see not the absence of it but another incarnation of seeing. By using this information artists can manipulate most effectively the gaze and attention of the viewer.

While in the Uffizi this break I came across a Parmigianino I have always admired “Madonna With the Long Neck”. My particular attraction to it stems from Modigilani who I was exposed to at a young age citing a similarity in the long necks of his female subjects and my long neck ( I think my dad was trying to make me feel normal, which I did, so the whole mission was a little weird).



Parmigianino uses a very basic light source from the top right to selectively highlight in order of religious importance: the Christ child, the Madonna, and then the on-lookers and background information. The child’s bright pale body is seen as brighter because it lacks intense detailing as opposed to the Madonna’s clothing, which is highly textured revealing the form of her body. In this instance Parmigianino uses the light’s interaction with the fabric to create and human form beneath her holy garb, but also to keep the viewer interested in her figure, as it seems that the theme of this painting is merely a vehicle for his interpretation of Madonna. The light that falls of her breast brings the viewers eye back to her extremely long fingers and then to her neck, both so elegant that one almost forgets that Christ is glowing happily in her lap. The light, however, does not land with any particular brightness on her face- instead in seems to pool on her chest and lap. This creates a circular focus of light, the heaviest part of the pool is with out a doubt Christ but his luminance brings the viewer back around again and again to Parmigianino’s realization of the Madonna. His use of light to focus the viewer on his technique seems to be a play on the his general style which is one of manipulated fancy, sometimes with light, sometimes with shape, and sometimes, with view point.

Light and Shadow

Arnheim’s discussion of how children and early art use outlines, local brightness, and local color reminded me of the difficulties I experienced when I learned how to shade drawings. For years and years, despite the many lessons I was given in shading, I refused to apply them to my own work. Rather than adding depth to the images, I felt that shading a face simply made it look dirty. Dramatic changes in brightness values, like clothing or hair or eyes would be a different color, but anything that is theoretically the same shade all over, such as skin, was left blank. In hindsight, I wonder why I thought these uniform figures were more realistic than the “dirty” shaded ones. I don’t think it was a matter of my shading being wrong. I didn’t learn any new techniques or have any major breakthroughs before I began to apply it to my work. I honestly think it must have been a difference in perception. What that difference is, I can’t begin to say, but the way I saw the world changed once I began to think of images in terms of shadows and light.

On a related note, the idea that light creates depth is not new to me, but it is one that I have always found fascinating. That, given the right lighting, a three dimensional object like the cone that Arnheim discusses (311) can appear to be two dimensional is hard to imagine. Logically, it seems like all three dimensional objects should remain that way and should be easy to perceive in their true form. Yet, in light of how much time and energy is spent on making two dimensional objects look like they exist in space, it should not be so surprising that the reverse is possible. It just emphasizes how easy it is to trick our brains into believing one thing about an image when the reverse is actually true.

Finally, I loved Arnheim’s discussion of cast shadows, particularly his description of the tribesmen in western Africa who “avoid walking across an open space or clearing at noontime because they are afraid of ‘losing their shadow’” (317). The idea that a shadow is an extension of the person it belongs to has always been interesting to me (and just might have stemmed from my childhood love of Peter Pan…), so the idea that the process of a shadow shrinking as the sun gets further and further overhead is actually a manifestation of it getting weaker is intriguing. In fact, now that I think of it, the tendency to see a shadow as separate from the object it belongs to just might explain the absence of shading in early art. If a person believes that cast shadows are separate from objects and people, the idea that other shadows are an integral part of the person or object itself would be hard to grasp.

Chasing Light

Arnheim (1974) writes, “But the prevailing view throughout the world seems to have been and to be that light, although originally born from primordial darkness, is an inherent virtue of the sky, the earth, and the objects that populate them, and that their brightness is periodically hidden or extinguished by darkness” (p.304). Thus, mentally light’s ownership is given to the object (material or abstract) that reflects it. This suggests that light is not an entity in itself but rather a property of something else. Arnheim (1974) explains that only in the 20th century has disembodied light become a subject worthy of artistic consideration.

James Turrell has taken up the challenge to tackle light as an artistic subject, rather than a property or agent of the visual scene. In his work, Turrell explores the behavior of light and plays with human perception on a fundamental level. The following light projection, or more appropriately sculpture, exemplifies the illusory qualities of Turrell’s work.



What follows is an attempt to understand how Turrell creates a 3-dimensional mass of light. Perhaps someone can chime in with a theory or further insight? This is what I have so far: Turrell is able to create the shape of a wedge using projected light. Livingstone (2002) explains that luminance contrast creates a sense of depth. Turrell applies this principle when constructing the wedge or jukebox like structure. When converted to grayscale the viewer can see that the wedge is much brighter than the background area and as a result, juts out from the wall.



The points at which the wall and floor meet in the background create two distinct perpendicular lines that the viewer mentally continues behind the foreground mass. Additionally, the mass is translucent and as a result the bottom of the mass has a lower luminance grade than the portion of the mass resting on the wall. Interestingly the edges of the wedge touching the floor and wall appear brighter than the rest of the wedge. It may be that the phenomenon is a property of the photograph, not the sculpture. However if it is not (and I think this is likely), the visual effect suggests that more light is being pressed into the corners of the sculpture, like mini-congregations of light. Perhaps this is the result of an exaggerated luminance contrast. The edges appear brighter because in relation to the wall and floor they are. Arnheim (1974) summarizes this phenomenon: “Whether or not a handkerchief looks white is determined not by the absolute amount of light it sends to the eye, but by its place in the scale of brightness values provided by the total setting” (p.306).

The question remains if Turrell was successful at treating light as an independent body. Although he has manipulated light as a subject it is debatable as to whether he has freed light from the bounds of a material concept. In the above description I unintentionally referenced Turrell’s treatment of light as a wedge, jukebox, mass that has a luminance value. I conformed to Arnheim’s stereotype—light is a property of an object, not an object in its own right. Thus I remain at a loss as to how to conceive of light as anything other than a visual attribute. As I wrote the previous sentence I thought of the treatment of “Tinkerbell” in Peter Pan and how she is sometimes represented as a moving light. Perhaps this is the answer—light must be given life.

On a final note, and returning to the quotation referenced in the beginning, Arnheim (1974) argues that we conceive of light as an internal property of an object that projects outwards. Darkness is created by the blockade of light. In the sculpture below Turrell experiments with this notion, in it, the inverted pyramid is reflected on the ground. What would be the pyramid’s shadow is not darkness, but rather light. This gives the appearance that the pyramid is radiating light, rather than simply reflecting it. In contrast, the viewer could interpret the pyramid as being in the spotlight, and thus a witness to light. Either way, the origin of light is falsified.

Luminosity and Shadow

Light is a crucial and fundamental element of our visual perception, I completely agree with Arnheim in his explanation of its importance in the first paragraph of his chapter on light. In fact, Monet lost much of his vision due to acute cataracts in his eyes. Ultimately, distinguishing the direction of light was the last remaining element of visual perception he possessed with the cataracts. By reading both the Livingstone chapter and the Arnheim chapter, one understands the true importance of light and all of the parts of our visual perception that it affects. At the beginning of the Livingstone chapter (pgs. 108-109) there is a figure that demonstrates how shifts in the intensity of light, or luminance, are the most successful and powerful indicator to our eyes of depth. I thought the last circle in the figure, the one which has a very faint gradient illustrates this principle incredibly successfully. When one views that circle, its depth becomes immediately apparent, however, the circle next to it that has merely a color gradient appears totally flat and two dimensional.

Livingstone goes on to trace the evolution of artists’ techniques in conveying depth, and variations of light in their work. Adding white or black to a color as Michelangelo did to convey depth and the effects of light sources had such a different effect from those employed by Rembrandt and Ingres who used gentle shifts in background light combined with abrupt shifts in local shading to achieve the impression of depth in their work. Relativity seems to play into light/dark visual perception immensely as one can see illustrated brilliantly in Rembrandt’s Meditating Philosopher on page 124. Areas of the painting feel lighter or darker, yet much of this is based on the contrast between local areas and lightness or darkness of the surrounding background. For example, Livingstone brings to the viewer’s attention the fact that the cross on the window appears to be darker than the crown of the philosopher’s head because of the way we perceive its location in the whole image, yet in actuality the reverse is true.

Shadow is something that Arnheim discusses in detail in his chapter on light, which I think is an important and interesting addition to an examination of the perception of light. Arnheim distinguishes between two different types of shadows, cast or attached. “Attached shadows lie directly on the objects by whose shape, spatial orientation, and distance from the light source they are created. Cast shadows are thrown from one object onto another, or from one part onto another of the same object” (Arnheim, 215). I understood these definitions to describe two different types of shadows within the painting El Jaleo by John Singer Sargent. The shadows on the wall and the ceiling are cast shadows caused by the strong angled light from in front of the dancer as it falls over the crowd and the dancer. The shadows within the folds of the dancer’s clothes are attached shadows. These shadows define various aspects of the painting and the scene. For example, the cast shadows show depth and distance between the dancer and the crowd of figures behind her. The shadow on the ceiling cast by the dancer is much larger and at a different angle because she is standing practically above the light source whereas the figures behind her are father away from the light and lower. The attached shadows within her clothes define the folds of the fabric and the volume of her form. In so doing they also convey some movement and tension because they provide cues to the viewer of the location and positioning of her body.

El Jaleo by John Singer Sargent

Madame X by John Singer Sargent

Madame X is another painting by Sargent and it helps to illustrate concepts of luminosity and shading. Madame X’s skin captures much of the intrigue and allure of this painting. It is so white, and bright, it almost glows. It is luminous. Arnheim explained, “an object appears luminous not simply by virtue of its absolute brightness, but by surpassing the average brightness established for its location by the total field” (Arnheim, 325). This is certainly is involved in the painting of Madame X and is responsible for making her skin so eye catching. Contrast between her skin, her dress and the background makes her skin appear incredibly bright and luminous. The gentle shading on her arms, shoulders, neck and face give the forms just enough definition without detracting from the luminosity. This is the sort of gentle shading that Livingstone demonstrated our perception of in the figure on pgs. 108-109. Madame X’s dress also has some shading, but as Livingstone says, in instances such as this it is hard to discern the form of her dress because attached shadows on black are much harder to see than attached shadows on any other color. Nonetheless, the shadow is there, important and perceived however faint it may be.