Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2024

DOI

10.3390/arts13020068

Publication Title

Arts

Volume

13

Issue

2

Pages

68 (1-21)

Abstract

The function of affectivity has generally focused on post-Council of Trent paintings, where artists sought a new visual language to address the imperative function of sacred images in the face of Protestant criticism and iconoclasm, either guided by the Council's decree on images, post-Tridentine treatises on sacred art, or by the Counter-Reformation climate of late Cinquecento and early Seicento Italy. This essay redirects the origins of the transformation of the function of chiaroscuro from objective to subjective, from corporeal to spiritual, and from rational to affective to a much earlier period in late Quattrocento and early Cinquecento Milan with Leonardo da Vinci. By tracing the transformation of chiaroscuro as a vehicle of affect beginning with Leonardo's Virgin of the Rocks, it will become evident that chiaroscuro became a device used to focalize the viewers' experience dramatically and to move viewers visually and mystically toward unification with God under the influence of the Franciscans.

Rights

© 2024 by the author.

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License.

Data Availability

Article states: "No new data were created or analyzed in this study. Data sharing is not applicable to this article."

Original Publication Citation

Muraoka, A. H. (2024). From Leonardo to Caravaggio: Affective darkness, the Franciscan experience and its Lombard origins. Arts, 13(2), 1-21, Article 68. https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020068

Download

Included in

Painting Commons

Share

COinS