The Message in the Shadow: Noise AND Knowledge William Sharpe, - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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The Message in the Shadow: Noise AND Knowledge William Sharpe, - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Apr 04, 2023 99 likes •950 views

The Message in the Shadow: Noise AND Knowledge William Sharpe, Columbia University oise Shadows are found almost everywhere in the visual arts People respond to them on conscious and subconscious levels, but rarely pause to analyze

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The Message in the Shadow: Noise AND Knowledge

William Sharpe, Columbia University

  • ise
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  • Shadows are found almost everywhere in the

visual arts

  • People respond to them on conscious and

subconscious levels, but rarely pause to analyze them

  • Viewers derive a lot of emotional and intellectual

pleasure from works in which shadows figure strongly or weakly

  • But the complexity of shadows means a certain

amount of “noise” will be part of the artistic message (which in itself will often be debatable)

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Skillful, Subtle Shadow=Noise Reducer Andrea Previtali, Salvator Mundi, 1519

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Attention-Getting Shadow =Noisier Shadow

Lois Dodd, Shadow of Painter Painting, 2009

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Challenges in Shadow Depiction (Technical Noise to Conrol)

  • Need to capture accurate shape, location,

direction, perspective, density, edges, texture

  • f surface, etc.
  • Remember "taboo" of shadow falling on a

person above the waist

  • Need to avoid shadow clutter in overall design
  • Need to avoid correct shadows that look

wrong and if necessary use incorrect shadows that look right.

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Masaccio, The Tribute Money, c. 1427

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  • Message in Shadow can be technical or mimetic

(location of objects in space)

  • Message can also be semantic/conceptual
  • Biblical shadow is protective Isaiah 51.16: "I . . .

have covered you in the shadow of my hand." Luke 1:35, angel to Mary: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee.”

  • Modern shadow is often troubling, threatening,

an unknown impulse or fear, repressed desire

  • Generally speaking the shadow is mysterious, a

sort of gap in representation that we fill in with

  • ur own personal/cultural interpretation
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  • F. W. Murnau, Nosferatu (1922)
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  • F. W. Murnau, Nosferatu , 1922
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Emile Friant, Ombres Portées, 1891

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Global Noise Reduction: Four Visual/Semantic Categories of Art-Shadow

  • CONNECTED SHADOW
  • Appears to expresses the substance of self = Vital

shadow

  • Appears to lack substance, not part of self = Look

Elsewhere shadow

  • DISCONNECTED SHADOW
  • Caster without shadow, expressing a vital substance

to be lost or gained = Completing shadow

  • Shadow without caster, becomes its own substance=

Independent shadow

  • All shadows fit in at least one of these categories; a

shadow can belong to more than one category

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I The Vital Shadow Connected to caster and its inner substance; we perceive that it reveals something essential about caster

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Joseph Benoit Suvée, The Invention of the Art of Drawing (1793)

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David Allan, The Origin of Painting, 1775

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Francine van Hove, Dibutades (2007)

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Thomas Holloway, A Sure and Convenient Machine for Drawing Silhouettes, 1792

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  • Lavatar, 1783: page featuring Moses Mendelssohn's profile

(top): "My gaze runs from the marvelous arch of the forehead to the sharp bones of the eye. In these depths resides a Socratic soul. Mark the wonderful transition from nose to upper lip […] how all this combines to make the divine truth of physiognomy palpable and visible."

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Gustave Doré, Poe’s The Raven, 1884 To be in the shadow of something is to feel its power

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Munch, Puberty (1894)

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Robert Weine (dir.), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, 1919

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Thomas Roma, 2011: "There was something about the primal nature of the shadows of these little lovable pets of ours. Their shadows, I felt, revealed a wilder side of their nature."

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Baltimore Police in riot gear, Baltimore, Md., April 28, 2015. Photo by Eric Thayer/Reuters

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II The Look Elsewhere Shadow Connected to caster but is not substance; asks viewer to look instead at caster and/or ponder illusions of shadows (Plato’s cave underlies this usage)

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Workshop of Robert Campin, Virgin and Child in an Interior, before 1432

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“Elsewhere” Shadow devices for increasing verisimilitude of a painting (Gombrich)

  • Shadows to make objects at bottom of picture

seem to project

  • Shadows at base of objects, giving impression of

weight and solidity

  • Shadows to increase drama (chiaroscuro;

Caravaggio and Rembrandt)

  • Angled shadows to give impression of depth and

perspective

  • Dense shadows to give impression of bright

sunlight, etc.

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Velasquez, “Imperceptible shadows”: The Forge of Vulcan, 1630

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Shadow adapted to artistic purpose: Bernardo Bellotto, New Market Square in Dresden, 1750

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Shadow as Lie? 1010 (street artist), Berlin

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Constructed Shadow: Tim Noble and Sue Webster, Dirty White Trash (with Gulls), 1998

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Kumi Yamashita, Exclamation Point, 1995

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Kumi Yamashita, City View, 2003

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Yamashita, City View, 2003

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Reduced shadow noise: Newcastle Brown Beer Billboard San Diego, 2011, ad agency Vitro and artists Ellis Gallagher and Pablo Power

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Trick shadow: Poster for Star Wars Episode I, 1998

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Old Folks’ Shadows

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Magritte, The Uncertainty Principle, 1944, "An object is presented against a background on which its shadow falls, with the amendment that the shadow is that of some quite different object.”

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III The Completing Shadow

Shadow disconnected from caster; shadow represents full humanity of caster but is absent or in the process of being lost or acquired

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George Cruikshank, Peter Schlemihl Selling His Shadow, 1827

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EugèneDelacroix, Hamlet, 1848

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Wendy Sewing On Peter Pan’s Shadow, Disney film, 1953

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Munch, The Lonely Ones (1889)

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Alain Resnais, Last Year at Marienbad, 1961

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Mark Tansey, Triumph Over Mastery II

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IV The Independent Shadow

  • -Shadow stands alone as its own

substance, without a caster visible

  • -Begins in 19th c. “If instead of a figure

you put the shadow only of a person, that is an original point of departure, the strangeness of which you have calculated.” -Paul Gauguin, 1888

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Jean-Leon Gerome, Golgotha: Consumatus Est (1867)

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Renoir, Le Pont des Arts, 1867

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Hopper, Night Shadows, 1921

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William Rimmer, Flight and Pursuit, 1872

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Giorgio De Chirico, Melancholy and Mystery of a Street, 1914

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Carol Reed, The Third Man, 1949

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Flatness of shadow lends itself to abstract aesthetic patterns: Paul Strand, Porch Shadows,1916

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Marcel Duchamp, Shadows of Readymades, 1918

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Ellis Gallagher in action, Brooklyn NY, 2009

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Lee Friedlander, Self Portrait (on Maria) (1966)

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Shadow without context: Andy Warhol, Shadows, 1978

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Andy Warhol, Shadows, 1978; 102 silkscreen canvases as exhibited at Hirschhorn Museum, 2011

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Arthur Tress, Andy Warhol at Shadows Installation, 1979

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Arthur Tress, Shadow: A Novel, 1975

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In art there is not the same urgency to decode shadow noise as there is in daily life; we can take our time and find music in the silent noise

  • f the shadow.
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Mario Martinelli, Capturing Shadows

  • n the street
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Konrad Witz, Annunciation, c1445

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Courbet, Bonjour M. Courbet, 1854

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Strøk (Anders Gjennestad) is a stencil artist and mural maker from Norway.

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William Holman Hunt, The Shadow of Death (1870)

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John Singer Sargent, Corfu: Lights and Shadows, 1909

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Munch, House in Moonlight, 1895

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exile from painting from 1967 to 1970)[14] feature single words depicted in a trompe l’oeil technique, as if the words are formed from ribbons of curling paper

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Ellis Gallagher, Triple Bike, 2009

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John Singer Sargent, El Jaleo, 1882

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Jacob Collins, Grimaldi In Studio, c2000

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Ellis Gallagher

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Lois Dodd, Self Portrait

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Rook Floro, I’m Sitting Here Casting My Shadow

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Louis Nemerth, Thanksgiving (Coming Events Cast Their Shadows Before) c. 1950

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Emile Bernard, Iron Bridges at Asnieres, 1887

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Sheet Music cover, Me and My Shadow, 1927

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William Collins, Rustic Civility, 1833