Some months ago I went to Madrid do see a painting exhibition about shadows, and their importance ion the different epochs of painting.

It was in both museums Thyssen-Bornemisza and Fundación Caja Madrid. The first had the ancient paintings and the later the most modern ones.

This exhibition was very complete and very interesting, as you can see in the next lines and posts. It explained the huge importance of shadows, and the different meaning and sensations that they can provoke, and how it was used by each painter and in each epoch.

For example, did you know that the shadow is present in the beginning of painting! When did painting started? Who invented it? What was it used for? These and many other questions were explained in that exhibition, and can be read in the next lines. All that I can say for now, is that it was a shadow the “mother” of painting…

1. The invention of Painting
2. Shadows in the Renaissance
3. Shadows in the Baroque period
4. Shadows in Romanticism
5. Symbolism and fin de Siècle
6. Shadows in the Impressionism
7. Modern realist movements
8. Shadows in Surrealism
9. Shadows from pop art to the present
10. Photography

With the development of technology, the photography started occupying a more important place in the visual arts. The game of shadow and light, clear and dark, black and white started appearing as an art, and influencing the painting techniques.

11. Cinema

In the cinema, the shadows were one of the first ways to provoke strong sensations. Remember that at the beginning there were no special effects, the technology did not allow those fast movements and special sounds that we are used nowadays. So, the most important artefacts used to provoke sensations were music and shadows, these last mostly used to provoke suspense, fear, terror, surprise…