![La-belle-jardiniere](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/La-belle-jardiniere.jpg)
According to the theory of the art historian
Marcia B. Hall
Marcia Hall, who usually publishes as Marcia B. Hall, is an American art historian, who is the Laura H. Carnell Professor of Renaissance Art at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture of Temple University in Philadelphia. Hall's scholarship has ...
, which has gained considerable acceptance, ''unione'' () is one of the
canonical painting modes of the Renaissance
Italian Renaissance painting is the painting of the period beginning in the late 13th century and flourishing from the early 15th to late 16th centuries, occurring in the Italian Peninsula, which was at that time divided into many political stat ...
; that is, one of four modes of painting colours available to Italian
High Renaissance
In art history, the High Renaissance was a short period of the most exceptional artistic production in the Italian states, particularly Rome, capital of the Papal States, and in Florence, during the Italian Renaissance. Most art historians stat ...
painters, along with
sfumato
Sfumato (, ) is a painting technique for softening the transition between colours, mimicking an area beyond what the human eye is focusing on, or the out-of-focus plane. It is one of the canonical painting modes of the Renaissance. Leonardo da V ...
,
chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro ( , ; ), in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achi ...
and
cangiante
According to the theory of the art historian Marcia B. Hall, which has gained considerable acceptance, ''cangiante'' is one of the canonical painting modes of the Renaissance; i.e. one of the four modes of painting colours available to Italian Hig ...
. Unione was developed by
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of works by Raphael, His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of ...
, who exemplified it in the ''
Stanza della Segnatura
The four Raphael Rooms ( it, Stanze di Raffaello) form a suite of reception rooms in the Apostolic Palace, now part of the Vatican Museums, in Vatican City. They are famous for their frescoes, painted by Raphael and his workshop. Together with Mi ...
''.
Unione is similar to sfumato, but is more useful for the edges of chiaroscuro, where vibrant colors are involved. As with chiaroscuro, ''unione'' conveys the contrasts, and as sfumato it strives for harmony and unity, but also for coloristic richness. Unione is softer than chiaroscuro in the search for the right tonal key. There should be the harmony between light and dark, without the excesses and accentuation of a chiaroscuro mode.
References
Painting techniques
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