Giovane Cedar Art
  • Home
    • River Gallery Spring Show
    • Cattails & Dragonflies Gallery
    • Jansen Art Center Winter Show 2023
    • Artwood Gallery
    • Matzke Gallery
    • Background Info
    • Purchasing and Shipping Info
    • Commissions
  • PAINTINGS 1
    • Waterfall
    • The Frog Poet
    • Ginkgos & Waxwings
    • Eagle's Pride
    • Spring in Bloom
    • Flower Moon in May
    • Northwest Rain Kosode
    • Snow on the Beach
    • It Only Takes One
    • Scattered Fans
    • White Circle of Silence
    • In the Spirit of Serizawa & Kubota
  • Paintings 2
    • Autumn Introspection
    • Bats' Lunar Playground
    • Foxgloves Reaching for the Sky
    • Plum Tree on a Snowy Night
    • Autumn Moon by the Sea
    • Chickadee in the Snow
    • Down by the Stream on a Lazy Summer's Day
    • Towhee & Currant in Spring
    • Sparrow's Spring
    • Autumn Grasses (Oribe Tribute)
    • A Tribute to Itchiku Kubota: Ozette Sunset
    • Cathedral of the Trees
    • Baillie Scott Trinity
    • Raven's Forest
    • Eagle Embraces Her
  • Paintings 3
    • The Guardian
    • Crows at Sunset
    • Cormorants
    • Skagit Scene
    • Dream Birds
    • Curious Crow
    • Hydrangea's Final Bloom
    • Pine Island
    • The Four Guardians
    • Circle About the Moon
    • Eelgrass Nursery Rhyme
    • Cedar Green Man
    • Serizawa's Kimono
    • Cats United
  • Paintings 4
    • Dance to the Moon
    • As Autumn Approaches
    • Echizen Crows
    • The Spirit of Fallen Camellias
    • Temple Hawk
    • Goldfinch Dream
    • Autumn Carpet
    • An Eala Bahn (The White Swan)
    • Horse Ema
    • Lucia's Maple
    • Eagles Spring Dance
    • Watts Chapel Tribute Memorial
    • Voysey's tree
  • Blog Page
  • Other Work
    • Paintings 5 >
      • Cedar Waxwing
      • Spotted Towhee
      • Stellar's Jay
      • Evening Grossbeak
      • Red Breasted Nuthatch
      • Black-Capped Chickadee
      • Cardinal
      • Camellias in Bloom Woodblock Print
      • Hot Otter Love
      • č’u•? is Seal
      • Loons & Horses
      • Hawk on a Pine 1
      • Elk Along the South Fork
      • Spirits of Ozette
      • Lingcod Guardian
      • Plum Blossoms in Spring
      • Journey Home From Ozette Island
      • Tsooes Sunset
    • Boxes >
      • Rose Tree Box
      • Celtic Bread Box
      • Creature of the Box
      • Kells Cats Chest
      • Miyamoto's Rice Box
    • Trays >
      • Dragonfly Tray
      • Kaiseki Tray
    • Karakami Square Series >
      • Karakami Square #1: Cherry Tree
    • Screens >
      • Eagles 2-Panel Folding Screen
      • The Four Seasons Screen Series >
        • Winter Screen: Eagle & Pine
        • Fall Screen: Canada Geese & Maples
        • Spring Screen: Cherry Trees & Finches
        • Summer Screen: Swallows & Willow
      • Frog's House Screen
      • Waterfall Screen
    • Peacock Sconces
  • Resources List
  • Catalog
  • Sold Paintings
  • Gifted Art & Personal Collection
  • Night at Marymere Falls
  • Eagle on a Pine
  • Skagit Landscape of the Mind: Full Moon at Midnight
  • Eggplant Harvest
  • Tomatoes & Wisteria Entwined
  • Running the Waves
  • When the Salmon Run
  • Autumn Deer
  • Dunlin Flight
  • The Fox Spirit (kitsune)
  • Crow on a Snowy Branch
  • Skagit Landscape of the Mind V: Winter's Cool
  • Trees IV

15.0 The Effects of Light & Shadow

2/20/2016

0 Comments

 
     It amazes me how changing light during the day can have a profound effect on the art in our house.  We shy away from bright lights and most frequently use table and floor lamps to light our living room.  What is created is a blending of differing light gradations running into shadow and darkness.  This sometimes disturbs Leigh, as she would prefer to see more clearly, but even she can agree that the quality of our lighting brings a soft and warm feel to the room—warm and cozy.  In terms of the art, certain aspects of the paintings are either enhanced by the dimness or are altogether obscured in shadow.  I love to see the flash of copper as the light hits a painting just perfectly.  The color comes and goes as I walk about the room, sometimes seeing that flash only out of the corner of my eye.  It’s there for a second, and then it’s gone.  It’s as though the painting has a life of its own, off in some other world, and only speaks to me when our worlds briefly overlap due to a change in the light.  For this reason my key color is copper.  It changes as the light changes throughout the day, from flat orange-brown to brilliant light reflected from the copper.  I believe that my paintings are best seen in differing amounts and angles of both natural and artificial light and not under some direct light source.
     The strongest effect of changing light occurs when the sun is going down and sunlight streams into our living room from the west-facing windows.  It is so wonderful to watch the sun’s effect as the rays slowly march across the room as sunset approaches.  The angle and intensity of the light plays on the art.  One of the most amazing effects occurred over a year ago when a perfect circle of sunlight acted like a spotlight to enclose the small bird in my Two Cats Captivated painting.  What really astounds me is that the painting was in the dining room down by the floor (where our cats could be eye-to-eye with their painted feline friends) and that circle of light seemingly came out of nowhere to highlight the source of their captivation.
Picture
​Two Cats Captivated (Spring 2014)
     The effect of light and shadow has played a large role in art for millennia.  One of the strongest effects occurs when one experiences an art object illuminated by the flickering light of an open flame.  I am so fortunate to have had the opportunity to watch masked dancers in a traditional longhouse setting.  Seeing the dancers in their masks perform in the firelight at the center of the longhouse created pure magic and a sense of otherworldliness for which they were intended.  As the dancers swirled, the masks were alternately illuminated and then obscured in shadow.  The dancers were no longer just family friends and former students; they had been transformed into something incredibly special.  The firelight took the dance to a whole other level.
Picture
Picture
Wolf Dancers A & B (Summer 2011)
     The effects of light and shadow are also greatly admired within the context of traditional Japanese culture.  Lacquerware made dining more appealing as it was developed to best show the effects of the dim flickering light produced by candlesticks and oil lamps.  Shoji screens and fusuma turned both natural and artificial light into a soft warm glow.  Karakami printing, with its mica-enriched paints, acted to reflect the light and brighten an otherwise dark room.  And screen painters like those from the Rinpa School used gold leaf for the background as a means of enhancing the light.  At the same time, the environment was designed to celebrate the darkness, and shadows were appreciated for the subtle effects they produced.  The best expression of this can be read in Jun’ichiro Tanizaki’s 1933 essay In Praise of Shadows.  To end this section, I have included several quotes from Tanizaki’s essay to give a better understanding of the appreciation for light and shadow in Japanese culture.

          “…in the still dimmer light of the candlestand, as I gazed at the trays and
      bowls standing in the shadows cast by that flickering point of flame, I
      discovered in the gloss of this lacquerware a depth and richness like that of a
      still, dark pond, a beauty I had not before seen. It had not been mere chance, I
      realized, that our ancestors, having discovered lacquer, had conceived such a
      fondness for objects finished in it.”

          “The quality that we call beauty, however, must always grow from the
      realities of life, and our ancestors, forced to live in dark rooms, presently came
      to discover beauty in shadows, ultimately to guide shadows towards beauty’s
      ends.” 

         “And so it has come to be that the beauty of a Japanese room depends on a
      variation of shadows, heavy shadows against light shadows—it has nothing
      else.”

         “This was the genius of our ancestors, that by cutting off the light from this
      empty space they imparted to the world of shadows that formed there a quality
      of mystery and depth superior to that of any wall painting or ornament.”

         “…we find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the
​      light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates.”
Picture
Crow’s Shadow (Fall 2012)
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Gary Giovane

    Gary Giovane has been studying art since the ‘70s. A graduate of Penn State University (B.S.) & Memphis State (M.A.T.), Gary has been an archeologist, a cook, and a high school science & math teacher.  Gary worked on the Fishtown, Ozette, & Indian Island archeological projects before teaching for 23 years in Neah Bay and for 7 years in La Conner.  He currently lives and works in La Conner, along with his wife, Leigh.

    Archives

    February 2018
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly