Andrew Enock
To master the illusion of light within a painting, is to also have mastered the ability to truly observe and retain the sights that you are seeing. An artist can do their best to mimic the intangibility of light, but the true amazement of light in artwork lays somewhere else in its composition. For the purpose of this piece, I will be analyzing and discussing the different core uses of light from the 17th century and Christian art to the 19th century, Baroque Period, when Romanticism and the worship of the tangible world begin to show in Western Art. During the highly religious periods, many well renowned artists used the illusion of light to represent figures like Jesus Christ, Mother Mary, angels, and saints within the narrative of their paintings. As civilization moved forward, this use of light slowly becomes overshadowed by artists such as Joseph Wright, whose piece “A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery” from 1776 perfectly grasps the tangible worship that artists felt at that time, and will be discussed later in this essay. While the techniques differ, and the standard of religious art is championed, light still acts as a conductor for any eyes that lay upon it. Sometimes it may be deceiving and point your focus in a direction opposite of the true subject of the painting, but light can also lead you straight to the subject of the painting. To expand on this, I will be speaking on the use of the illusion of light in three paintings from three separate centuries. The first painting being Carravagios “Supper at Emmaus” (c.1601), followed by Joseph Wrights “A Philosopher Lecturing” (c.1776) and ending with Peder Balkes “The North Cape by Moonlight” (c.1847). While there is a lot more to see, these three pieces reveal the very humble evolution of the illusion of light in western art.
Carravaggio’s “Supper at Emmaus” (c.1602) shows the instance that Jesus Christ, after being resurrected, shows himself to his disciple, Luke, in the town of Emmaus . While this is a religious piece, it is not as exaggerated as many famous pieces of Christian art, such as “The Creation of Adam” or “The Liberation of Saint Peter”, where light is used to identify religious figures or places. The scene in the painting does not popularize with many, but during the romanesque and renaissance times, it began to surface more and more. With this painting, we can already see the 2 shift to a more realistic approach to painting, and one factor that plays a role in this shift is the consistent, realistic use of light. The painting “The Liberation of Saint Peter” is a perfect example of light representing religious figures, with the only light source coming from around an angel, and is a great reference to search later on. In Caravaggio's piece, we do not see this approach with light, rather there is a clear light source outside of the frame of the painting coming in at an angle, possibly coming from a window or possibly candles. If there is light and an object interfering with it, there will be shadows, and the application of shadows to the interpretation of this piece is greatly important. Through analyzing the shadows, it can be assumed that the light is coming directly from the direction that Christ is gesturing towards, which brings a slight religious aspect to the more realistic piece of Christian art. Caravaggio's techniques and choices helped him achieve the “appearance of verisimilitude” , which means depicting the truth. Richard Harries, The Passion in Art. (Routledge, 2004) 1 Janis C. Bell, “Light and Color in Caravaggio's "Supper at Emmaus, Artibus Et Historiae, (1995): 139. 3 realism. While it is considered realism, there is that slight religious factor being portrayed through Carravaggios application of light.