Episode 79: Chiaroscuro at Champlain College · The Painter's Dialectic · Radar

Introducing Chiaroscuro1:55 – 5:21

1:55

Hi, everybody.

1:56

It's nice to meet you all.

1:58

My name is Josh.

2:00

I live in New York City.

2:01

I am an artist.

2:04

I'm going to talk today about chiaroscuro.

2:07

So Marianne told me that you guys are working on some traditional drawing and painting skills.

2:14

So chiaroscuro is a technique that was developed during the Italian Renaissance and has lasted for about 500 years and is still used today.

2:24

And it was sort of a revolutionary technique that made believable realism.

2:33

OK.

2:33

All right.

2:34

Can everyone see the PowerPoint? Just give me a thumbs up.

2:39

Yep.

2:41

Good.

2:41

Okay.

2:42

So chiaroscuro is a Renaissance technique.

2:46

And here, the image to the right, we have a Caravaggio painting.

2:51

This shows a real extreme version of chiaroscuro called tenebrism.

2:58

um but here's some of my credentials i got my bfa at the university of west florida i trained in classical painting for three years at the florence academy of art in florence italy and then i did my mfa at the alfred dusseldorf painting split between alfred university and dusseldorf germany so today i work as an artist this is my studio i have a commission back there i am an art educator I am a studio assistant, so I help professional artists in the studio practice.

3:34

And I'm a scenic artist, so I paint theater sets.

3:38

I paint Broadway stages.

3:40

I'm actually going to be doing that this upcoming week.

3:43

So all of these techniques are very useful.

3:47

Classical training, classical realism is a very useful practical skill that can get you a wide variety of jobs within the art field.

3:58

um this is my media my website is josh green art i have an online school of classical and contemporary painting called the artist errant and i have a podcast called the painter's dialectic which you're currently on this is going to be an episode and it's viewed internationally um so let's talk about drawing and painting before the invention of chiaroscuro so this was at the same moment that chiaroscuro was invented this is a painting hopefully you know this by uh baricelli so this is um the birth of venus and let's just notice some things about it right we have a contour line drawn around every part of of her right and we do have an attempt at a light effect right we have this soft shading what's her right side of the face right to try to create form but it's not very convincing right there's a sort of flatness and a illustrative or cartoony quality to this figure This is how drawing and painting was looking like by one of the best painters at the time, Botticelli.