In this series of short videos, the artist Michael Newberry discusses the meaning and importance of various works in the history of art and sculpture. #9 of 29.
Michael Newberry discusses the importance of light and its source to the composition of this painting.
Michael Newberry, b. 1956, is an avant-garde figurative painter, writer and teacher promoting evolutionary flourishing through his work. He does this through advances in color theory, body language, symbolism, and composition.
Michael is the author of two books released in 2021: Evolution Through Art and Newberry Color Theory.
In the Masaccio, the main driving thing is the light.
So, in this work, we have a very strong sense of where the light is coming from.
It's driving the cast shadows on the ground.
It's driving the light on the ground.
It's hitting up against the people of Adam and Eve.
They're in the same light source.
Even the angel that's up above behind them is being lit by the same light source.
So, he's using light as a matter of integrating these elements of the figure.
And that's very advanced.
To our modern eye, the imaging is a little bit crude.
The drawing's a little bit crude.
The detailing's a little bit crude, especially in contrast to the ancient Greeks,
seeing the sculptures and the refinement.
So, there's things that are not happening here.
The proportions are okay.
The anatomy is not great.
But the main thing is the innovation is integrating the objects based on the light.
And that's anticipating the landscapes and developments in the Renaissance
and also in the French Impressionists
and also with artists like Vermeer and Rembrandt, their accent on the lighting.
And he's really championed the lighting in this.
There's also a sense of spatial depth between Eve and Adam
and how he's integrating the spatial depth and creating an atmospheric perspective
where it's almost like she's going back in a little bit of a haze.
And then that's integrated with this main powerful light source, which is the main thing.
