On Contours

When rendering objects in space, everyone knows, there must be some seperation of the objects. Throughout history painters have wrestled with ways of doing just that. Leonardo DaVinci used his sfumato effect to create seperation of foreground objects from background objects. He utilized his knowledge of aerial perspective to create a blurred transition between objects, thus creating the illusion of atmosphere. Later artists such as Johannes Vermeer used sfumato by allowing his paint to overlap the transition areas, which creates a luminous effect around that object. For instance, conservators at the National Gallery in London, have written about his use of this in “A Lady at the Virginal with a Gentleman.” In the floor tiles leading to the foreground he allowed the white tiles, which were painted first, to be overlapped by the black underpaint of the dark tiles next to them. He then scumbled over these darker tiles with a blue and black mixture and allowed this to overlap as well. This created the luminous effect between these seperate elements. He utilized this effect in many ways and was always searching for ways to depict light and space. Another artist to use sfumato was Rembrandt. He utilized this technique by allowing the underpainting to shimmer through a highly viscous upper paint layer. The underpainting was usually impasto or a heavy weave of canvas, which gave a “tooth” to catch the loosely applied upper layer. Sfumato is only one way in which artists have created seperation of objects in space. Color is universally know to create seperation in a painting, but it wasn’t until the Fauvists that color was exploited in great depth. The use of cools receding and warms coming forward was used by Vermeer as well as many others. While this may seem obvious to us now, it wasn’t always utilized in painting. As painters we are always trying to achieve that elusive depth in our paintings and it is due to this that we discover these new techniques and ideas about space. So, just paint, learn all you can, and paint. If you should happen across a new technique, let me know at info@blueridgeartist.com.