Given the convention established in figurative painting to omit shadows cast on figures, this article looks at the treatment of shade and shadows in landscapes. As with figurative paintings, few landscapes intended for general viewing were painted outside the studio until well into the nineteenth century.

Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes was unusual in collecting hundreds of oil sketches made in front of the motif, like this of Farm Buildings at the Villa Farnese: the Two Poplar Trees, made in Rome in 1780. He used this library of images to compose his studio landscapes, so was faithful in depicting shade and both attached and cast shadows where he felt appropriate. But he has omitted the shadows cast by the poplars, as those would depend on the lighting in his finished studio painting.

Valenciennes was highly skilled at making these sketches, and it’s likely this would have taken him less than an hour. Over that brief period, in settled weather, natural light changes sufficiently little as to maintain the coherence of shade and shadow throughout.

Learning to paint en plein air takes time and practice. As the French Impressionists acquired their skills in the second half of the nineteenth century, some struggled to cope with the ever-changing direction of light and altitude of the sun. Some only included notional shadows, or dropped them completely. For those who felt they should be included, one solution is to leave cast shadows until last in the order of work, and so to ensure their coherence.

For Paul Cézanne learning to paint en plein air alongside Pissarro’s easel in 1873, cast shadows weren’t left until last, but painted as he completed each section of this view of the House of Père Lacroix, Auvers-sur-Oise. However, as with all beginners, he took a long time getting the painting to look right, so different sections of the roof were painted several hours apart.

As shown in the marked-up image below, the angle subtended by the shadows isn’t consistent. In some, the sun is high in the sky, close to its zenith, but in others rather lower. These imply a wide range of solar elevations, an issue that still affects those learning how to paint en plein air.

For those still painting finished landscapes in the studio, cast shadows remained a bear-trap for even the most conscientious.

When Georges Seurat made studies for his masterpiece A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884-6), he didn’t synchronise their cast shadows. The study above, painted in 1884, shows the shadows cast from the twin trees in the left foreground as consistent with the sun being to the left and behind the viewer. Others further into the distance indicate a light source directly to the left, and there’s a detached shadow in the right foreground that appears to have fallen independently.

When Seurat came to paint the huge finished work, he adhered to the same incoherent shadows, further complicated by many figures. This was completed in three phases over a period of more than two years.

Some paintings appear to have had carefully made light and shadow studies to ensure the resulting studio painting is fully coherent.

This is shown well in Gerrit Berckheyde’s view of Groote Market in Haarlem, Amsterdam from 1673. Two centuries before the use of photography to record such views at a moment in time, conscientious studies enabled him to keep shade, attached and cast shadows coherent even though painting the finished work may have taken him several weeks.

JMW Turner used cast shadows in many of his landscapes, particularly those at sunrise or sunset, when very long cast shadows emphasise the time of day. Petworth Park: Tillington Church in the Distance (c 1828) is viewed from a high level to further exaggerate the length of its shadows.

Alfred Sisley’s late and more realist series, such as Moret Bridge in the Sunlight from 1892, could still have been painted largely en plein air, using a technique perfected by Camille Pissarro, and used later by Cézanne: working on the painting over a succession of days, but in synchronised sessions, when lighting conditions were almost identical. This was how Pissarro painted most of his late cityscape series, with their great detail.

The options for coherent depiction of cast shadows are thus:

• paint a very quick sketch, completing it within an hour;
• delay painting all shadows until the last phase of work, to make them synchronous;
• make careful lighting studies to inform a studio painting;
• paint over a succession of days, but with synchronised sessions and near-identical light.

From the late nineteenth century, the use of photographs became another alternative. It’s worth noting in this context that earlier optical aids, such as the camera obscura, were of no help at all in the depiction of shade or shadows.

For many landscape paintings, this meant that cast shadows were indicated notionally or not at all. But it has enabled some unusual effects.

Golgotha (Consummatum Est, or Jerusalem) from 1867 is one of Jean-Léon Gérôme’s few religious paintings, showing the view from Golgotha looking towards Jerusalem as the executioners and crowd make their way down towards the darkened city. The three crucifixions aren’t shown directly, but as shadows cast by brilliant light.

Renoir painted The Pont des Arts Paris in April 1867. Its detailed realist view shows this pedestrian bridge from the left bank of the Seine. What is unusual here are the cast shadows in the foreground: careful tracing shows that those are from people standing on a bridge above the viewpoint of the artist. Although still a relatively inexperienced landscape painter at the time, Renoir has maintained coherence in those shadows, probably by painting them in last. Given the detail in this view, that’s impressive.

Further reading

Michael Baxandall (1995) Shadows and Enlightenment, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 07272 4.
Roberto Casati and Patrick Cavanagh (2019) The Visual World of Shadows, MIT Press. ISBN 978 0 262 03958 1.
EH Gombrich (2014/1995) Shadows. The Depiction of Cast Shadows in Western Art, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 21004 0.
Franck Leibovici (2023) What Time Is It? Stories About Painting, Shadows & The Sun, JBE Books. ISBN 978 2 36568 070 7.