Chiaroscuro

Affogato, known in full as gelato affogato al caffè is an Italian dessert comprising a scoop of vanilla ice cream, topped with hot espresso. As much as I would love to talk about desserts because my passion in that arena sparks quite high. I want to talk about how the composition of this dessert matches art. An Affogato uses cold ice cream with hot espresso to provide you a divine culinary experience. The opposing of elements in this dish is its selling point, that is what makes it special. To use different environmental elements, hot and cold, to create something beautiful. Much like Chiaroscuro. An artform that uses both light and dark to show depth, volume or density. I used my own art as an example. This here is a still life study that I did in my 12th grade. It consisted of only pencil sketching and we were asked to play around with the light to produce on paper what was displayed on the table. It is only through both light and darkness can one notice the folds on the tablecloth in the sketch, it is only through light and darkness that one can see the design on the lamp. Both aspects, light and darkness are vital and produce the desired emotion. A serious, harsh shift in the vibe or a solemn setting would require darker shading, whereas lighter strokes could possibly depict gleaming or tenderness. In a world where the idea of two opposing elements mixing is considered odd, here almost need each other to produce the outcome that has been shown. They thrive off each other’s oppositeness without which their art would not be able to express the emotion that it does. It’s like a yin and yang. If you have been able to bear with me till here, I sincerely thank you. In order to continue capturing as much of your attention as possible, I’m going to be telling you a story. Once upon a time, Hades the god of the underworld captured Persephone, the goddess of agriculture by making her eat pomegranate seeds, the food of the underworld. While Persephone is the element of prosperity, after being isolated to the underworld, her absence affected the life on earth and made it mundane. However, after Demeter, the mother of Persephone pleaded for the return of her daughter back to Olympus Hades decided that he will release her for six months of the year and imprison her the next six. And this came to be the apparent reason we have seasons. The seasons are based on the time Persephone spends in the Underworld and on Olympus. You see two opposite elements of nature, the underworld and the life of the fields combining to form what we call seasons. Similar to this, art has ways of talking about the human life that another would not be able to match up to. There is something so brutally moving about saying things without having to say them and the form of art reaches heights to make up for that. So, if words, speech, acts do not suffice. Art does, it always does.