Chiaroscuro

“Chiaroscuro” literally means “light and shadow” in Italian, and is often used to describe paintings that use extreme contrasts of dark and light. Artists like Caravaggio, da Vinci, and Rembrandt famously employ chiaroscuro techniques, and I am completely captivated by the way these extremes coexist in art to create dramatic beauty. As always, life imitates art in the way these extremes coexist. Ignoring pain in favor of pleasure is a fool’s errand, just as depicting light without shadow results in blankness. “Any glow that I pursue brings an umbral partner too.” Throughout this piece, I explore the extremes of dynamic as you’d expect in a piece about contrast. At the same time, not every “light” is consonant, nor is every “shadow” dissonant, just as life’s binaries are not clean cut. In the middle of the piece, the sections of the choir each have repeating patterns, like gears in machine that might produce a glow from a lightbulb. I imagine a dramatic lighting display accompanying the varying textures made by the choir and the bowed crotales, and by the end of Chiaroscuro I hope to find a bit more peace with both the light and the shadow.