What time of day is it? How cast shadows can help or confound, a painting showing Donati’s comet that can be timed precisely, and difficulties with indoor paintings.
shadow
How to paint a landscape with faithful and coherent cast shadows, why most painters don’t do so, and a few get it wrong.
Leonardo da Vinci studied different types of shade and shadow, but recommended painters not to depict cast shadows in their paintings. This explains why.
Explaining shade, attached and cast shadows seen in paintings. While the first two have been generally painted faithfully, cast shadows are more complicated.
The hard road to realism: development and propagation of knowledge, how to apply it in paintings, and its benefit on visual art.
Telling a story using shadows, and the nineteenth century controversy over the colour of shadows.
From the shadowed silhouette painted by the legendary Dibutades to paintings of families involved in shadow play.
Used by Joseph Wright of Derby to symbolise knowledge coming from darkness, by Henry Fuseli for the mysterious even supernatural, and Millet and van Gogh for poverty.
A whirlwind trip through the history of compositional chiaroscuro, from the Renaissance, through Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi, to Rembrandt.
Why do Canaletto’s gondolas not have shadows? Where did Cézanne get his shadows wrong, and why, and what colour are shadows really?
The Eclectic Light Company 