Dynamic Lighting - William Mortensen

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About Dynamic Lighting - William Mortensen

From page 54 in "Pictorial Lighting", c.1935 we find William Mortensen's description of Dynamic Light -

"It is a commonplace of criticism to speak of the emotional basis of art. But this criterion must be applied with caution. If the mere power of create an immediate emotional response be taken as a measurement for works of art, then a telegram announcing that your Uncle Henry has died and left you mis millions in Australia would have to be regarded as a greater masterpiece than a Shakespeare sonnet, and a press photograph of a particularly gory street accident would rate higher than the "Last Supper". Obviously, the frequently made generalization of "art deals with emotions" is misleading unless its implications are understood. Art seldom has to do with the raw, unmodified material of emotions. Emotion in art must be more or less formalized and reduced to the terms of the medium.

" The degree to which such formalization of emotion is carried varies greatly, depending upon the temperament of the artist, the medium in which he works, and the qualities of the material which he uses. In music, for example, the formalization is almost complete; in drama, emotion is often presented in a nearly literal terms. Pictorial art stands between these two, inclining sometimes to strict formalization in its treatment of emotion, and sometimes to realistic recording.

" In the last chapters we have been discussing light in terms of "pure visibility." The image, under these conditions, is presented in itw own terms and for it sown sake, impersonally, statically, and chiefly in the form of aesthetic satisfaction in the harmonious relationship of shapes and lines displayed in a two-dimensional pattern.

"But there are certain types of pictorial material that are more explicitly emotional; that is, the material has strong emotional connotations of its own, apart from and independent of the emotions induced by this formal relationships. Such material usually partakes of drama - drama either expressed outright in situation or suggested in characterization. Obliviously, such material is fundamentally different from that which is impersonally set forth in the Basic Light, and will not admit of any high degree of formalization.

"This difference in emotional background demands a difference in lighting. Strong emotion creates and atmosphere about itself and a feeling of movement and unrest that cannot be realized in a serene luminousness of Basic Light. It demands a light that is unbalanced and illusory... I have called it the Dynamic Light because, unlike the lights we have thus far dealt with, it suggests unbalance and movement...

" There are thus two sorts of material that call for the use of Dynamic Light dealt...

1. The emotional and dramatic
2. The familiar and personal

"In the field of painting, the first sort of material is represented in the work of such differing artists as Goya, Tintoretto, and El Grecco. These men all produced canvasses teeming with action and movement and illuminated with an unbalanced lighting of almost theatrical intensity. The second sort of material - the familiar and personal - is represented pre-eminently in Rembrandt's portraits of placid Amsterdam burghers, and in the Dutch interiors of Terborch and Vermeer..."