Forms of Penumbra

In review­ing the vast bib­li­og­ra­phy con­cern­ing the top­ic of light and shad­ow one notices how dif­fer­ing lay­ers of knowl­edge have built up one atop anoth­er. Thus, one may also take for grant­ed that light is omnipresent, and that dark­ness is almost inex­is­tent, where shad­ows are col­lat­er­al­ly local man­i­fes­ta­tions expe­ri­enced as a rel­a­tive defi­cien­cy of light itself.

Through­out his­to­ry west­ern cul­tures have used light as a medi­um to con­vey clar­i­ty and to empha­size impor­tance. Light has been asso­ci­at­ed with the val­ue of life, the after-death and philo­soph­i­cal con­structs regard­ing truth. Dark­ness has been asso­ci­at­ed with the occult, the hid­den, to neg­a­tiv­i­ty and sur­rep­ti­tious­ness. Con­verse­ly, most east­ern cul­tures have shown a pre­dis­po­si­tion for shad­ows, where shad­ows are linked to the soul and inher­ent aspects of one’s per­son­al­i­ty. Regard­ing space, the nuance shad­ows have defined plat­forms for spa­tial com­pre­hen­sion. In their spa­tial con­cep­tion ​“mean­ing is pro­duced not through abrupt changes but through sub­tle vari­a­tions,”1 sug­gest­ing pat­terns of shad­ows as a vehi­cle for manip­u­lat­ing space. Besides the cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences one can agree that the nuances of shad­ows imply dif­fer­ing nuances of light. 

Schol­ars have recent­ly prof­fered the notion that the mys­tery of light in space does not grav­i­tate towards its presence—as an inde­pen­dent iso­lat­ed matter—but rather towards its absence. Based on this the­sis, one can momen­tar­i­ly detach the cul­tur­al impli­ca­tions of shad­ows and observe that the absence of light—as a modal procedure—has been con­sis­tent­ly present with­in the realm of artis­tic and spa­tial poet­ics of west­ern culture.

Leonar­do Da Vin­ci attempt­ed to under­stand the phe­nom­e­na of light linked to the stud­ies and the­o­ries of per­spec­tive evolv­ing dur­ing the renais­sance through obser­va­tion­al draw­ings. He cat­e­go­rized three types of light defi­cien­cies: cast shad­ows, attached shad­ows and shad­ing2. Despite dis­crep­an­cies in how these terms are con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous­ly under­stood, the nature of Leonardo’s obser­va­tion­al sketch­es con­dense the phe­nom­e­nal com­plex­i­ties of light through graph­ic codes: light rep­re­sent­ed through pro­jec­tions and shad­ow as surfaces.

The falling of Light on a face (1480) maps an event [ 1 ] using syn­tac­ti­cal tra­jec­to­ries of light to inform the rela­tion­ship among the source (point a), the medi­um (face) and the receiv­er (skin). This ana­lyt­i­cal demon­stra­tion detach­es the spa­tial char­ac­ter­is­tics of light and dark­ness by reduc­ing the phe­nom­e­na to sim­ple representational/observational facts.

This reduc­tion of con­tent inher­ent in the analy­sis of com­plex events reshapes our men­tal con­structs about these phe­nom­e­na, pre­vent­ing the aware­ness of oth­er fun­da­men­tal aspects of light and dark­ness: those crit­i­cal ele­ments relat­ed to space. This fact dri­ves observers to asso­ciate light with ​“what is vis­i­ble” and shad­ows with a col­lat­er­al pro­ject­ed sur­face. A more expe­ri­enced observ­er might seman­ti­cal­ly asso­ciate light with a pres­ence – with addi­tion, and shad­ows with absence – with subtraction.

If a rep­re­sen­ta­tion implies—by default—a reduc­tion of con­tent, is there a pos­si­bil­i­ty that we are los­ing inher­ent aspects of the phe­nom­e­na that may reshape our con­cep­tion of light and dark­ness? Can shadow—as a degree of darkness—be asso­ci­at­ed with a pres­ence and light with absence? Is the ana­lyt­i­cal pro­ce­dure con­vey­ing the idea that light and shad­ow are two sep­a­rate con­di­tions pre­vent­ing the observ­er from see­ing and expe­ri­enc­ing them as one?

The per­cep­tu­al under­stand­ing of the phe­nom­e­na requires the inclu­sive analy­sis of both ana­lyt­i­cal and artis­tic rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Leonar­do Da Vin­ci him­self wrote in his notes: ​“Dark­ness is the absence of light. Shad­ow is the diminu­tion of light.” 3 He fur­ther asserts: ​“The begin­nings and ends of shad­ow lie between the light and dark­ness and may be infi­nite­ly dimin­ished and infi­nite­ly increased. Shad­ow is the means by which bod­ies dis­play their form. The forms of bod­ies could not be under­stood in detail but for shad­ow.” 4

Da Vinci’s notes sug­gest that a shad­ow is an inter­sti­tial con­di­tion between bodies…between light and dark­ness: ​“Shad­ow is the diminu­tion alike of light and of dark­ness, and stands between dark­ness and light” 5. It is impor­tant to under­stand that the term shad­ow was used dif­fer­ent­ly by Leonar­do, often as ​“the coun­ter­part of the lumi­nous rays, which are cut off by an opaque body” 6, in oth­er words as an absence, and as a degree of dark­ness, which he called sim­ple shad­ow or com­pound shad­ow. To avoid mis­un­der­stand­ing, this inter­sti­tial con­di­tion can be iden­ti­fied with the term penum­bra. Penum­bra (from Latin paene, ​“almost” and umbra, ​“shad­ow”) is under­stood and revealed to us as the space of shad­ow between light and total dark­ness. It is an area where it is dif­fi­cult to define the end­ing of one pres­ence and the begin­ning of anoth­er. Penum­bra is used here broad­ly and is not lim­it­ed to the physical—fading light/darkness—but includes phys­i­o­log­i­cal and per­cep­tu­al fea­tures that its pres­ence gen­er­ates in space. It frames the feel­ing of ambi­gu­i­ty inher­ent in the ​“lim­i­nal” con­di­tion, between two appar­ent, con­sol­i­dat­ed stages.

Da Vin­ci explored the inter­sti­tial nature of penum­bra in Madon­na Lit­ta (1490−91) and The Last Sup­per (1498), among oth­er works. Tiziano Vecel­lio, in his paint­ing The Agony in the Gar­den (1558 – 62), fur­thered the idea which in turn influ­enced his pupil Michelan­ge­lo Merisi da Car­avag­gio. The Call­ing of Saint Matthew (1601) is well-known for explor­ing the coali­tion of the two forces: the pow­er of faith rep­re­sent­ed by Jesus’s illu­mi­nat­ed face—bringing the omnipresent light with him—and the mun­dane world of tax col­lec­tors [ 2 ]. The paint­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al­ly illus­trates oppo­si­tions and inver­sions. The use of chiaroscuro on the right side is extreme, and illus­trates the bod­ies of light and darkness—almost touching—with a clear hor­i­zon­tal dis­sec­tion: the good from the bad, clar­i­ty from dark­ness. Jesus is posi­tioned with­in the darkness.

The lim­i­nal con­di­tion between bodies—light and darkness—is expand­ed towards the left side of the paint­ing. A wider body of penum­bra cor­re­sponds to a wider range of per­son­al­i­ties with­in the mun­dane world and the dif­fuse bound­ary between poten­tial and help­less­ness. Penum­bra embraces the tax col­lec­tors but also Matthew, defin­ing a body where trans­for­ma­tions hap­pen: the call, the moment of con­ver­sion from one con­di­tion to anoth­er. Thus, the com­po­si­tion inverts the idea of shad­ows as a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of absence and presents it as a fun­da­men­tal, spir­i­tu­al pres­ence. Penum­bra becomes a body capa­ble of gen­er­at­ing space and con­tain­ing crit­i­cal events via dif­fer­ent illu­mi­na­tions. Light is asso­ci­at­ed with absence, or, with and exter­nal pres­ence dom­i­nat­ing the scene.

Caravaggio’s penum­bra con­tributed to mak­ing this bib­li­cal event a con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous­ly imme­di­ate, even pedes­tri­an, event: the result of a modal­i­ty that con­veys mean­ing and expos­es con­tent by ​“solid­i­fy­ing” the rela­tion between light and dark­ness. As time­less as they are in them­selves, they also make the rela­tion between space and ten­sion time­less, regard­less of the speci­fici­ty of con­tent. Cer­tain forms of penum­bra are—in themselves—a vehicle. 

Caravaggio’s alchemisti­cal approach using dos­es of penum­bra and dra­mat­ic chiaroscuro have become fun­da­men­tal for gen­er­at­ing ten­sion and con­vey­ing mean­ing. His work gave birth to the tene­brism for the pro­nounced use of light and dark­ness, espe­cial­ly when dark­ness projects pri­mor­dial char­ac­ter­is­tics.7 The pro­found poten­tial of the tech­nique inspired coeta­neous painters—the Car­avaggisti—to work inside a field with gen­er­ous dark­ness, a field induced by ten­sion; they suc­cess­ful­ly con­veyed mean­ing by reg­u­lat­ing inter­sti­tial accents and den­si­ties of penumbra. 

In review­ing their work, one can­not dis­miss that the dark com­po­si­tion­al aura touch­es upon the tran­scen­den­tal edge of the sub­lime. There is a spa­tial rich­ness ​“inbuilt” through the accent­ed use of chiaroscuro, a force that express­es the capac­i­ty of emer­gence. Is there a poten­tial form of space ​“locked” with­in this ten­sion? Does this ten­sion tem­porar­i­ly remain in time or does it vary with it? To which point is the medium—the form, which con­structs accent­ed penumbra—responsible for hold­ing this ten­sion? Is it pos­si­ble that a con­ceived form con­structs such a ten­sion that it tran­scends time? 

Hold­ing this con­di­tion in time has been the inter­est of many artists, in some cas­es tak­ing the top­ic to lev­els that exceeds exis­tence and posits a real­i­ty out­side human per­cep­tion. Gior­gio Di Chiri­co con­front­ed this uncer­tain­ty with a set of pic­tures known as piazze metafisiche, meta­phys­i­cal explo­rations that began after a per­son­al expe­ri­ence in Piaz­za San­ta Croce, Flo­rence Italy. The piazze are pre­ludes to a deep­er study of par­al­lel expe­ri­ences: ​“Every­thing has two aspects: the cur­rent aspect, which we see near­ly always and which ordi­nary men see, and the ghost­ly and meta­phys­i­cal aspect, which only rare indi­vid­u­als may see in moments of clair­voy­ance and meta­phys­i­cal abstrac­tion.” 8

Mys­tery and Melan­choly of a Street (1914) sur­re­al­is­ti­cal­ly maps an event. Penum­bra is all there: it is a suggestion—the mes­sage to convey—it is a fad­ing res­o­nance embod­ied with latent con­tent. The penum­bra evokes the will to reveal what has not been revealed yet—the antic­i­pa­to­ry thresh­old of the unknown [ 3 ].

An eclipse-like orange light slices the can­vas with an inci­sive trace, a demar­ca­tion of the dual­i­ty required to define form. The meta­phys­i­cal event allows free pro­jec­tions, dis­tort­ed van­ish­ing points and sug­gests a jux­ta­po­si­tion of spaces as the mea­sure for the com­po­si­tion. Degrees of dark­ness con­tribute to a modal­i­ty that seems to dis­so­ci­ate space from time, the pref­ace for a time-lapse experience.

The dark base of the pic­ture, as in The Call­ing of Saint Matthew, and the skies in accent­ed dark­ness are fram­ing the observ­er to stand in a point in which light is fad­ed. Dark­ness, as point of view, is the coun­ter­point of the inci­sive light at the cen­ter of the pic­ture. It empha­sizes the enig­ma of the cen­tral shad­ow and the girl’s sil­hou­ette. Chiaroscuro is used in per­spec­tive, through the depth of the pic­ture, fol­low­ing a trace from the observ­er to the van­ish points. These resources are fram­ing a space dis­lo­cat­ed from the point of action. The girl’s black sil­hou­ette forces us to focus on what her shad­ow is say­ing: to run to the shad­ows of a pos­si­ble stat­ue. The mes­sage is clear: the shad­ows come first—the will, the action; after comes the pos­si­ble result—arriving to the statue. 

There is a nar­ra­tive path, a line we fol­low which rais­es ten­sion. The unfold­ed enig­ma allows the observ­er to fill in the gaps of the unknown, becom­ing per­cep­tu­al­ly involved and even­tu­al­ly cre­at­ing his/her nar­ra­tive with poten­tial spaces. The right-hand build­ing in the penum­bra offers the ques­tion of what may be inside the build­ing itself, at the arcade and espe­cial­ly what is behind it: a square where action hap­pens. As with Car­avag­gio, light is void.

The non-align­ment of van­ish­ing points con­tribute to the over­lap­ping of spaces fram­ing the time-lapse. The left-side pro­jec­tions and van­ish­ing points define the arma­ture for con­fig­ur­ing a ​“hid­den space”, a place where the action may hap­pen. The right-side pro­jec­tions and van­ish­ing points lead to the nar­ra­tive action itself, a point where two shadows/silhouettes will meet. The non-align­ment of forces chal­lenges the idea of space and action as jux­ta­posed, syn­chro­nized enti­ties and pro­pos­es that they are not oppo­si­tion­al with­in one’s perceptual—observational—field.

The inci­sive line divid­ing both bod­ies acts as a scalpel, a tool used to slice form and space. As the archi­tect Alber­to Cam­po Baeza has sug­gest­ed, line is used as a medi­um for under­stand­ing space by dis­sect­ing what is dark­ness and what is light9, what is form and what is space. The ten­sion held between both is the field of maneu­ver for De Chiri­co to con­vey a mes­sage, a mode with poten­tial­i­ty for archi­tects to influ­ence architecture.

Fur­ther­more, com­plex uses of shad­ows can be observed in cer­tain works of cubism, the first artis­tic van­guard to chal­lenge the strict idea of per­spec­tive as a form of nar­ra­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion – a restruc­tur­ing of for­mal rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al tools and sys­tems used to express all parts of an object—or scene—in the same pic­ture plane, thus achiev­ing a ​“holis­tic vision” of space. A divorce from a per­spec­tive is a divorce from a unique point of view. Mul­ti­ple faces of an event are syn­the­sized and col­lat­ed into one piece as one expression.

The act of frag­ment­ing form and space is not inno­cent. It dis­tances itself from assumed fac­tu­al rep­re­sen­ta­tions. Pic­to­r­i­al rep­re­sen­ta­tions focus on per­cep­tu­al expe­ri­ence, expand­ing the time-lapse of events through mul­ti­far­i­ous points of view. In El Guer­ni­ca (1937), Pablo Picas­so explores the hor­rif­ic dra­ma of the bomb­ing of Guer­ni­ca. The whole scene is nar­rat­ed by con­nect­ing indi­vid­ual events, which are seman­ti­cal­ly three-dimen­sion­al, bi-dimen­sion­al­ly stripped and exposed. A col­lec­tion of ele­ments is revealed one to anoth­er, express­ing how they are relat­ed to each oth­er inside the dra­ma. Map­ping these rela­tions becomes a pri­or­i­ty defin­ing a palimpses­tic read­ing, decom­pos­ing and frag­ment­ing form and con­dens­ing infor­ma­tion as need­ed to unfold the may­hem. Penum­bra is fun­da­men­tal. The body of shad­ows becomes inde­pen­dent. It becomes a sep­a­rate iden­ti­ty capa­ble of being ​“detached” from the form and per­forms a deep­er role: to hold/connect the events that are vig­or­ous­ly, and anar­chi­cal­ly, frag­ment­ed [ 4 ].

The body of shad­ows works as an arma­ture in the com­po­si­tion, giv­ing sta­bil­i­ty to frag­ments and pieces. The bull and horse posi­tioned in dark shad­ow seem to rep­re­sent the act of stay­ing, a pre­lude for the dra­ma. The nuances of the penum­bra sup­port sta­t­ic events: the ones hap­pen­ing an instant before the bombing—the living—and after it…the dead. The con­tours of the pro­ject­ed shad­ows escape the ratio­nal log­ic of light pro­jec­tions. They tend to con­nect to one anoth­er giv­ing a sense of mea­sure­ment between the ele­ments in the pic­ture. Light can be asso­ci­at­ed with suf­fer­ing, scream­ing, run­ning and escap­ing. Light is the move­ment that tends to escape from the arma­ture of penumbra.

There is anoth­er form of penum­bra that is not ful­ly appre­ci­at­ed because it is not used as a medi­um for relat­ing objects in the scene, but is rather a mat­ter con­tained in the process of mak­ing. In 1922 Lás­zló Moholy-Nagy began to map ideas of trans­paren­cy using a source, a medi­um and a receiv­er. He pro­duced sil­hou­ettes in a neg­a­tive form by expos­ing objects on light-sen­si­tive paper in a pho­to­graph­ic process with­out the use of a cam­era. He called these one-off pic­tures ​‘pho­tograms’. Pho­togram Self-Por­trait of the Inven­tor of the Pho­togram (1926), as he called it, fea­tures a kind of penum­bra that can­not be sep­a­rat­ed from the pho­togram itself. The image con­dens­es the depth of mat­ter pro­duced by light pass­ing through the objects and spaces between them. The whole jour­ney of light is com­pressed in the receiv­er (the medi­um), in this case, pho­to­graph­ic paper, around Moholy-Nagy’s face [ 5 ].

Moholy-Nagy was one of the pio­neers in the use of Light as a decision–making ele­ment. Through an exper­i­men­tal machine known as Light Space Mod­u­la­tor (1930), ideas about trans­paren­cies emerged as form of pro­ject­ed pat­terns of penum­bra. The machine for ​“creat[ing] pools of light and shad­ow” 10 would exem­pli­fy his prin­ci­ple of ​“vision in motion” 11 based on under­stand­ing and extract­ing aes­thet­ic forms from a liv­ing body to cre­ate new expres­sions of space [ 6 ].

Many instances in his career make his fas­ci­na­tion with map­ping trans­paren­cy evi­dent. The series of Gelatin sil­ver pho­tograms and Gelatin sil­ver prints from 1939 to 1943, includ­ing expe­ri­ences using col­or (1939), are pat­terns of penum­bra as aes­thet­ic forms. Moholy-Nagy saw space in these pat­terns, espe­cial­ly in the beau­ty of the move­ment as a pre­lude for spa­tial form. Pro­ject­ed reg­is­tra­tions of penum­bra were com­pressed in a sur­face medium—a photogram—resulting in a chore­og­ra­phy of spa­tial asso­ci­a­tions. One can assume that Moholy-Nagy was not look­ing for trans­paren­cy, but for forms of translu­cence: qua­si-trans­par­ent forms that allow mate­ri­al­ly reg­u­lat­ed trans­mis­sions of light, estab­lish­ing an ​“aes­thet­ic dia­logue”. The result did not seek to evoke a real­i­ty but rather an explo­ration of the act of map­ping itself. The rela­tion between the ele­ments along a tra­jec­to­ry of light became pri­mor­dial. The source, the medi­ums and the receiv­er were every­thing need­ed for con­fig­ur­ing the spa­tial man­i­fes­ta­tions to arti­facts and arti­facts to space. 

The action of com­pact­ing space into a pla­nar form reveals that penum­bra can be ​“con­tained” in cer­tain rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al medi­ums. In 2014 Steven Holl vis­it­ed Caja of Grana­da, con­sid­ered one of the best works of Cam­po Baeza. Accord­ing to Holl the vis­it was a cel­e­bra­tion of the exis­tence of archi­tec­ture ​“regard­less of its func­tion”. He expressed the mag­nif­i­cence of this space as an ​“implu­vi­um of light”, a ves­sel for light and a medi­um that stip­u­lates the sea­son­ing of the build­ing. The spa­tial ​“rich­ness” of this work would not be pos­si­ble with­out the use of a key trans­mu­ta­tion­al medi­um: thin pieces of alabaster. 

The inner shell is con­struct­ed using plates of alabaster, a mate­r­i­al that does not reject/reflect light but rather absorbs it. One can say the penum­bra gov­erns the inte­ri­or of this stone: it only needs light to reveal what is hid­den with­in. Alabaster, as a medi­um, allows light to escape or reen­ter the void. The same rela­tion­ship is present here: the source, the medi­um and the receiv­er. Penum­bra can be asso­ci­at­ed with den­si­ty; mat­ter con­dens­es forms of penum­bra [ 7 ].

Forms of penum­bra are present in acts of rep­re­sen­ta­tion and mak­ing. It is a medi­um in both. Penum­bra con­tained in rep­re­sen­ta­tions is con­nect­ed more to the idea of con­vey­ing mean­ing, while penum­bra as a result of mak­ing is relat­ed more to the idea of mass and form. Both can be seen as sep­a­rate or joint expe­ri­ences; as a con­tin­u­um and a con­se­quen­tial process, from a bi-dimen­sion­al to three-dimen­sion­al man­i­fes­ta­tion, and vice ver­sa. The first implies a process of cre­at­ing space, adding con­tent to a pla­nar man­i­fes­ta­tion in order to spa­tial­ize it. The sec­ond involves a process of con­dens­ing, reduc­ing and extract­ing con­tent to even­tu­al­ly fin­ish with a dis­tilled armature.

The forms of penum­bra con­sid­ered above are deployed as vehi­cles oper­at­ing with­in the design process. Specif­i­cal­ly, Caravaggio’s work fea­tures a penum­bra that is often bi-dimen­sion­al: a jux­ta­posed pla­nar field, extreme­ly dark, that achieves three-dimen­sion­al­i­ty by being inter­rupt­ed abrupt­ly where crit­i­cal con­tent needs to be anchored, by becom­ing dif­fused where mean­ing needs to be con­struct­ed, by inten­si­fy­ing col­or-con­trast where nar­ra­tive links need to be height­ened and by allow­ing trans­paren­cy where meta­phys­i­cal pres­ences need to be evoked. The accu­ra­cy in the details and the man­ner in which penum­bra col­ors the event make the ​“instant of the call­ing” a point in time palimpses­ti­cal­ly embed­ded with meaning.

De Chirico’s penum­bra fun­da­men­tal­ly embod­ies space, which is inher­ent­ly latent in his meta­phys­i­cal motives. Although there is a bi-dimen­sion­al medi­um, the spa­tial nar­ra­tive is com­plet­ed by the observ­er when fill­ing in the gaps the art­work ambigu­ous­ly con­veys. The work has the poten­tial to per­cep­tu­al­ly trig­ger a three-dimen­sion­al world.

Picas­so struc­tured Guer­ni­ca with pat­terns of shad­ows and con­nect­ed them with aspects of ​“time”. Shad­ows asso­cia­tive­ly con­nect scenes as inten­tion­al arma­tures con­vey­ing con­tent before and after the bom­bard­ing. Light is the action and the move­ment, which is framed between these two moments in time. Spa­tial­i­ty is also chal­lenged seman­ti­cal­ly when mul­ti­ple points of view rein­force the message.

Maholy-Nagy reshapes penum­bra as technique—and tool—and sit­u­ates it as an inher­ent, and trans­mutable, spa­tial con­di­tion. Through his pho­tograms and ideas of trans­fer­ring movement—or three-dimen­sion­al manifestations—to bi-dimen­sion­al medi­ums and vice ver­sa he achieves the idea of syn­thet­i­cal­ly con­dens­ing space ver­sus expand­ing and cre­at­ing space—adding con­tent. Obser­va­tions about Cam­po Baeza’s build­ing rein­forces tan­gen­tial ideas in Moholy-Nagy work, which implies that penum­bra is not only an exter­nal man­i­fes­ta­tion of form but it is also an inher­ent inter­sti­tial man­i­fes­ta­tion of mat­ter. Light is need­ed to reveal the hid­den penum­bra with­in the mass itself. 

These ideas rein­force the poten­tial­ly embed­ded in the use of penum­bra with­in the design process. Leonar­do Da Vin­ci has an intuition: 

Penum­bra has a strong rela­tion to accu­ra­cy, latent con­tent, arma­ture, expand­ed and con­densed space and mat­ter. There­fore, it has the poten­tial to enrich design process­es when it is under­stood as a medi­um, not just as an arma­ture for con­ceiv­ing design, but rather an ele­ment of tran­si­tion to new cre­ations, enhanc­ing con­ti­nu­ity in the design process.