How to Use chiaroscuro in a Sentence

chiaroscuro

noun
Definition of chiaroscuronext
  • Their works share a melancholy woven from chiaroscuro — the play of light and shadow.
    — Cate McQuaid, BostonGlobe.com, 11 July 2023
  • The chiaroscuro of the photos is beguiling; the pambazo gleams with Caravaggian light. . .
    — Maurizio Cattelan, Vogue, 30 July 2017
  • And in the perfect chiaroscuro, this is a woman who thrives on the frisson of impossible love.
    — Soraya Roberts, Longreads, 8 June 2019
  • Her mother was gripping her hands, leaning over her body like a chiaroscuro, shooing my friend George and me out of the room.
    — Deborah Copaken, The Atlantic, 7 Jan. 2020
  • Her timbre carried with it a sonic chiaroscuro: pure tones gleamed out of depth and shadow.
    — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 3 Oct. 2019
  • Just be wary of displaying too many deep, dark chiaroscuro paintings.
    — Tyler Lynch, Popular Mechanics, 18 Nov. 2022
  • Finally, the sun broke through the gray clouds, casting the rows of Italian cypress into stark chiaroscuro.
    — Matt Ortile, Condé Nast Traveler, 13 Dec. 2021
  • The boys in Led Zeppelin, to take one instance, are said to have found their patterns of musical chiaroscuro, the movement from soft to loud and back, in her work.
    — Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 29 July 2022
  • Every choice seems as extreme as possible, from the cut of the costumes (by Clint Ramos) to the chiaroscuro lighting (by Rui Rita).
    — Jesse Green, New York Times, 14 May 2018
  • If the sun has gone down, so should your overhead lighting, according to Terzian, who like to light lots of candles for a chiaroscuro effect.
    — Caroline Hatchett, Robb Report, 8 Nov. 2022
  • This is a certain style of photography called chiaroscuro, which used to fascinate me as a kid.
    — Isobel Thompson, A-LIST, 6 Sep. 2017
  • Trump’s right side, partially draped in shadow, creates a touch of chiaroscuro, light reckoning with the dark.
    — Karen Heller, Washington Post, 25 Aug. 2023
  • The chiaroscuro in Rembrandt’s painting of Titus evokes that ambivalence.
    — Sebastian Smee, Washington Post, 17 June 2023
  • The author has a gift for creating chiaroscuro portraits, capturing both light and dark.
    — Jennifer Senior, New York Times, 29 June 2016
  • Among them was Rachel Ruysch, whose delicate, bountiful bouquets populate urns and dark niches—a play of chiaroscuro in the style of the times.
    — Jessi Jezewska Stevens, The New Yorker, 8 May 2021
  • One person looks at it and, with the cold admiration of a connoisseur, analyzes the colors, the chiaroscuro, the background.
    — Vladimir Nabokov, The New Yorker, 8 Nov. 2019
  • Looking for a little chiaroscuro to light up your Thanksgiving weekend?
    — Booth Moore, The Hollywood Reporter, 20 Nov. 2017
  • Our real seders here in Berlin are typically less chiaroscuro, but no less crowded.
    — Molly Crabapple, The New York Review of Books, 7 Apr. 2020
  • His canny placement of the camera for long shots and use of chiaroscuro lighting in close-ups make just about every scene, all of them filmed in widescreen, a cinematic study.
    — David Mermelstein, WSJ, 8 June 2021
  • Shifting levels of brightness are key to reproducing the chiaroscuro of an image.
    — Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 11 Sep. 2020
  • The long, linear wooden structures are open to the elements and cooled by swirling fans and perforated screens, creating a chiaroscuro dance of light and shadow.
    — Condé Nast Traveler, 28 Dec. 2021
  • In fact the lighting is very painterly, with sharp chiaroscuro bursts whenever a moment needs an exclamation.
    — Rod Stafford Hagwood, sun-sentinel.com, 9 Oct. 2019
  • In fact, the photography is rather moody and in chiaroscuro tones, giving the empty furnished rooms a compelling, dreamlike quality.
    — Steven Kurutz, New York Times, 4 Dec. 2019
  • Within the multi-level retail complex, the range of lighting goes from moody shadow to dramatic chiaroscuro and bright sunlight.
    — Alastair Gordon, miamiherald, 12 May 2017
  • The ragged yet nevertheless powerful revival that opened on Sunday in Pittsfield, Mass., succeeds best with the darker side of that chiaroscuro.
    — Jesse Green, New York Times, 24 Aug. 2023
  • The production’s design grows in artistry as the scene moves to the Parisian streets, with painterly scrims that have the charm of an animated film and lighting by Justin Townsend that introduces gorgeous chiaroscuro effects.
    — Los Angeles Times, 8 July 2022
  • The dark negative spaces in this loose arrangement contrast with the light flowers, echoing Hopper’s chiaroscuro.
    — Lindsey Taylor, WSJ, 20 July 2018
  • The filmmakers also studied the chiaroscuro paintings of Caravaggio and Zurbaràn.
    — Tobias Grey, WSJ, 4 Nov. 2022
  • The light from Riis’s flash powder revealed the nooks and crannies of poverty, the chiaroscuro of dirt and bedraggled cloth on skin illuminated by a burst of fire from the gizmo that shocked the subjects being photographed.
    — Marlo Safi, National Review, 29 June 2019
  • For a collection of striking chiaroscuro portraits in the group’s yano, or common house, Andujar allotted a whole roll of precious film per sitting.
    — Chris Wiley, The New Yorker, 25 Mar. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'chiaroscuro.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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