Long Reach Road IG11 2018 acrylic on board 30 x 50 cm
Shadows in paintings are often assumed to be negative, receding spaces, trailing behind or in between objects. However, they are much more than simply dark blocks of tone. Shadows in nature are rarely completely black in colour and they often contain complex and stimulating visual contrasts for the artist to tackle.
An artist once told me not to place cool shadows into the foreground because blue and grey are receding colours and can make a picture look cold or flat. However, I believe that the placing of contrasting colours and tones makes for evocative images involving shadows. I put the idea to the test with the painting Long Reach Road IG11, which depicts an industrial estate on a sunny day. A dark shadow dominates the composition and makes the parked vehicles inside it appear dim and cool but it also helps to emphasise the sunlit part of the scene and distant sky. The shadow is also backlit by the sunlit side.
PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR Nude in Sunlight 1876 oil on canvas (image: meisterdrucke)
The nature of shadows was given much attention by Impressionist artists such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who once stated that “shadows are not black. No shadow is black. It always has a colour”.
Renoir’s Nude in Sunlight (1876) was given a hostile reception when it was exhibited, being referred to amusingly as a “mass of decomposing flesh”.
Renoir had simply represented the sitter in a real natural setting, where the dappled light of a garden is complemented by cool shady tones on the skin. The critic’s comment was not so much a position of ignorance regarding realistic tones, rather a disdain for art that did not fit the long established fashion of the time for idealised classical forms (after all, how does a figure with bluish skin represent an idealised figure such as a goddess or nymph?)
The Fauvist movement went further and approached nature head on to create vibrant interpretations of real landscapes. As artists like Renoir and the Fauves appreciated, coloured shadows are created by backlighting from surrounding light sources, where the colours are not always receded. American artist Wayne Thiebaud is well known for colouring in his shadows and objects with bright edges and veiled halos to bring a diffuse but chromatically bold effect that don’t recede into the background. Shadows are an integral part of a composition’s make up.
Two direct light sources (red and white lamps) illuminate an object, producing two shadows: one reflecting the primary colour and a comlementary secondary colour
The composition of white light and it’s mix of primary colours is key in creating colourful shadows. To illustrate this I illuminated a teapot with two lamps at slightly different angles: a primary coloured red lamp (main light source) and a pure white lamp (ambient light source). The shadows created were red and cyan (a secondary colour and opposite to red.) The red shadow was produced by the lamp blocking the white light source with the shadow backlit by the surrounding reflected light from the red lamp. The cyan shadow was produced by the teapot blocking the red light source, with backlighting from the ambient white light source. It appears cyan because it stands out more against the surrounding red ambient light in the scene. Only where the teapot blocks both light sources do we see a much darker, blackened shadow. In another example I used the white lamp with an amber lamp to create a rich warm shadow that jumps out.
Lighting effects offer a myriad ways of representing the surroundings that we live in. Shadows are an integral part of that experience.