From trompe l’oeil for sculpture to children making rabbits on the wall, shadows have long been popular, and most recently have featured in Surrealist paintings too.
Girometti
Using shadows to tell or add detail to a visual story. Examples by Robert Campin, Gérôme. William Holman Hunt, Lovis Corinth and others.
Telling a story using shadows, and the nineteenth century controversy over the colour of shadows.
Was painting ‘invented’ by the maid of Corinth? What is ‘shadow play’, and how have painters extended it to religious works? A short history of shadows in painting.
The Eclectic Light Company 