This afternoon I had to attend a funeral, and while I was seated in the church waiting for the ceremony to begin I had the opportunity to look around me. Almost immediately my attention was seized by the effect of the light on the ceiling. Together with a series of supporting beams this was painted a muted off-white colour. The difference between the apparent colour of different areas of it was really startling.
Two adjacent panels evidently picked up reflected light from different objects at floor level, so that one actually appeared to be light blue while the adjacent panel had a rose hue. Two adjacent beams were similarly in stark contrast to each other. One was dark against the lighter background of the panels between which it was situation, whereas the other was perceptibly lighter than its adjacent panels. These contrasts were quite obvious within a rather small area of the ceiling.
What was just as remarkable was the variation of tone within the same colour, over a given surface that was flat, as the light moved across it. I was puzzled by the fact that this did not appear to have much to do with the proximity of the illuminated surface to adjacent windows.
Had I set out to paint the scene in front of me, tremendous attention and discipline would have been required in order to capture the way in which the light delimited the features of the area in question. In fact, I guess it would have been a bit of a nightmare because as time passed all of these patterns of illumination would have changed. It has been a day of intermittent cloud and sunshine.
Some people frown on the use of photographs by artists, and yet I cannot imagine how these complex effects of light could have been approached by any other means. (If it was good enough for Degas then it’s good enough for me!)