Following the previous post on the choice of colours in design work, I wanted to expand one point about the use of light and dark, which is what I'll do here. Although it might not be of direct use in the design of web or print work, which is the greater focus of this blog, I hope it will still enlighten.
Light and dark in broad terms
We can pick almost any landscape paintings and so let's choose ones in the public domain with the help of Wikipedia.
This is View of Laerdalsoren, on the Sognefjord (1901) by Themistokles von Eckenbrecher (German, 1842–1921). Notice how the sense of depth is not provided simply by changes in scale but also the richness of colour being stronger in the foreground and the scene becoming lighter as we reach towards the background.
Another example of where depth is achieved through the way in which the colour lightens as we progress to the mid- and background is this painting by Claude Lorrain, Ascanius Shooting the Stag of Sylvia (1682).
We could go on demonstrating this use of light and dark, finding examples from John Constable or alternatively we could look to Van Gogh and observe how while breaking the rules and having a much flatter perspective he also observes enough of the rule to give perspective where it is desired. But I want to choose a painting now where the tricks aren't quite so hidden.
Light and dark in narrower terms
I would be grateful if you would take the time to look a painting called Prospect Park by Samuel S. Carr, which I haven't reproduced here for lack of permission. The reason I'd like you to consider this painting is because it provides some useful examples of how light and shade are used in narrower terms. Observe the following:(1) the grass becomes lighter and lighter green as it recedes into the background
(2) the sheep in the foreground are yellowish, the sheep in the middle ground are lighter, a sort of greyish colour, while the sheep towards the very back are almost white.
(3) the woodland at the back of the painting places the foremost trees as the lighter ones of the collection and if we look again at the sheep, we also see that the foremost parts of them - the tips of the ears and the tips of the woollen coats - are also the lightest parts of the sheep.
These points are typical across the majority of landscape paintings. The general case being that the further away something is, the relatively lighter it is compared to how it would appear in the foreground, but that within a single unit or object the lightest part of that object is foremost.
Still life and the dark side
The same is true (about the lightest part of a single object) in still life pictures and can be seen most clearly in a picture like Still Life with lemons and blue bottle by Julian Merrow-Smith, where a bottle will be dark at the edges and light at the point closest to the viewer, or thereabouts, in order to give the illusion of roundedness (taking into account light and shadow in the rest of the picture, along with the viewpoint).But in contrast to landscape paintings, dark backgrounds are not uncommon in still life pictures and neither are they uncommon in portraits. When I think of paintings with dark backgrounds, I usually think of An Experiment on a Bird in an Air Pump by Joseph Wright of Derby, 1768.
In this painting, it is upon that which we do not wish to look that our eyes are forced back though we try to search the darkness for another point of attraction. I could go on and say that at the same time the central light is too bright to hold our attention continuously. And also if we look through the window at the more natural attraction of the moon, then we are seeing the action out of the corner of our eye. (This echoes the way in which no one is looking very directly at the action aside from the girl and a couple of the gentlemen.)
Conclusion
Although design work is often very different to fine art, it at the same time takes the techniques of fine art and boils them down to their essence, until they are a thick and sticky nectar. It therefore never hurts to return to fine art to think about how the eye travels through a piece of art and how it is attracted and distracted by light.
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