Shadows: The Depiction of Cast Shadows in Western Art. - book reviews

Shadows. The word conjures up many associations, depending on one's orientation and state of mind. I see the word and immediately envision darkness, a nocturnal condition signifying the other side of reason, a metaphorical terrain distinguished by its own peculiar dynamics, In the shadow world of my imagination, a discourse with cognitive science would be anomalous.

But shadows have many incarnations in the history of painting. And nocturnal shadows, though of particular interest to me, are not the focus of two recently published books, both of which take a more empirical and scientific approach to the subject. E. H. Gombrich, well known for his insightful essays on visual perception and the psychology of pictorial representation, has written a small volume on the depiction of cast shadows in Western art. Published by the National Gallery in London, this concise survey accompanied an exhibition of the same title, one of a series sponsored by the museum and organized around the theme "The Artist's Eye." The other book, Shadows and Enlightenment, authored by Michael Baxandall, highlights the 18th century, comparing that period's notions about shadows with those of a more modern period.

Both books complement each other. Gombrich writes exclusively about cast shadows, their intermittent appearance and disappearance throughout the development of Western painting. But why cast shadows? There are different types of shadows, you see, or "holes in the light," as one 18th-century scientist described them, each owing its existence to the absence of light. Cast shadows projected on another surface or object should not be confused with localized shadows or haft-shadows whose pictorial representation through techniques of modeling or shading is inextricably bound to its host. In other words, the cast shadow not only testifies to the solidity of an object, but offers the possibility for metaphorical, even caricatural implications. Several examples - Jean-Leon Gerome's Golgotha: Consummatum est (1867), William Holman Hunt's Shadow of Death (1870-73), and Grandville's Shadows (The French Cabinet) from La Caricature (1830) - illustrate the final pages of Gombrich's text and add an interpretive dimension to an otherwise predictable study.

Cast shadows easily disrupt an otherwise coherent and harmonious composition, which may explain why many artists, from the end of the 15th century onward, chose to eliminate them from their pictorial repertory. It was Leonardo da Vinci, who, in a passage of his Notes known as the Trattato della Pittura, urged painters to avoid harsh shadows by conceiving their subjects in an atmospheric environment devoid of harsh sunlight, Gombrich notes ironically that Leonardo, despite his antipathy to cast shadows, laboriously researched their effects, along with every other objective kind of shadow. (The section of the Trattato devoted to Light and Shade, for instance, occupies no less than sixty-seven pages of the original manuscript [the Codex Urbinas].) Leonardo's bias had a profound influence on subsequent generations of painters, a fact mentioned by both Gombrich and Baxandall. (It was not until the 17th century, with Caravaggio and Rembrandt, that harsh shadows reappeared once again with dramatic results.) Gombrich excerpts from Leonardo's Trattato to preface a section of his book titled "observations on cast shadows in the history of painting." He then initiates a discussion that backtracks to Masaccio, segues to Robert Campin, Fra Angelico, Caravaggio, and Francesco Guardi, and abruptly ends with Giorgio de Chirico. In the end, he provides a rather thin historical overview, partially balanced by a rapid-fire analysis of selected works in the exhibition.

In the Baxandall book the author's notes on Leonardo and early Renaissance shadow appear in the form of an appendix. Baxandall's project focuses on the 18th century, and - like Gombrich - he realizes that an informed study of shadows is compromised unless Leonardo's earlier research is acknowledged. In this case the author's commentary functions as a coda that informs the preceding narrative.

Shadows and Enlightenment combines cognitive science, 18th-century theories of visual perception, and art history. Based on the notion that shadows are first and foremost a visual phenomenon that can be scientifically codified, the book is a rich source of technical information: didactic definitions, diagrammatic illustrations, and historical research. The introduction, for instance, begins with an in-depth description of shadows and their contingent variables, such as light source, illumination, and surface characteristics. And a preoccupation with perceptual data, scientific postulation, and philosophical discourse comprises the bulk of the narrative. In the preface the author writes, "The book was written out of an interest in looking at shadows and any reader will need the same, but," he continues, "it is coloured by being an offshoot of work-in-progress on problems of visual attention in eighteenth-century thought, in modern thought and in the art of painting." I presume that the word "attention," as it appears in this context, signifies an acute perception, and, by extension, an interest in shadows as a cultural and philosophical manifestation. If this is the case, then the book succeeds.