light - Electromagnetic radiation that has a wavelength in the range from about 4,000 (violet) to about 7,000 (red) angstroms and may be seen by the normal unaided human eye. It may refer to other wavelengths somewhat longer and shorter, such as those of ultraviolet (UV) and infrared. Also, either the sensation of light, a source of light, its illumination, the representation of it in a work of art, or an awareness as if there were light on a subject.

Light has been important to visual artists for obvious reasons, and has frequently become either the subject or the material of artists' works.

Some examples:

"Caravaggio", Michelangelo Merisi (Italian, 1571/73-1610), The Crucifixion of St. Andrew, 1607, oil on canvas, 202.5 x 152.7 cm, Cleveland Museum of Art. See tenebrism.

"Caravaggio," Michelangelo Merisi, David Victorious over Goliath, oil on canvas, (110 x 91 cm), Prado Museum, Madrid.

Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606-1669), Self-Portrait, 1658, oil on canvas, 52 5/8 x 40 7/8 inches (133.7 x 103.8 cm), Frick Collection, NY.

Joseph Mallord William Turner (English, 1775-1851), Cologne: The Arrival of a Packet-Boat: Evening, 1826, oil and possibly watercolor on canvas, 66 3/8 x 88 1/4 inches (168.6 x 224.1 cm), Frick Collection, NY.

Joseph Mallord William Turner, The Harbor of Dieppe, 1826?, oil on canvas, 68 3/8 x 88 3/4 inches (173.7 x 225.4 cm), Frick Collection, NY.

Jean-François Millet (French, 1814-1875), Woman Sewing by Lamplight, 1870-1872, oil on canvas (lined), 39 5/8 in. x 32 1/4 in. (100.65 cm x 81.92 cm), Frick Collection, NY. See Realism.

Dan Flavin (American, 1933-1996), 'Monument' for V. Tatlin, 1966-9, fluorescent lights, 305.4 x 58.4 x 8.9 cm, Tate Gallery, London.

Dan Flavin, Untitled (For you, Leo, in long respect and admiration) 2, 1977, fluorescent lights, 8 feet square across a corner.

Robert Irwin (American, 1928-), No Title, 1966-67, synthetic polymer on aluminum with 4 flood lights, diameter 48 inches (121.9 cm), depth 13 inches (33 cm), Whitney Museum of American Art, NY.

Bruce Nauman (American, 1941-), Double Poke in the Eye II, 1985, neon construction, 24 x 36 x 11 inches, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO.

Abelardo Morell (American, born Cuba, 1948-), Light Bulb, 1991, photograph of a camera obscura — a corrugated cardboard box, fitted with a lens — so that light from a light bulb beside it is cast onto a wall of the box's interior. Morell has made numerous photographs of rooms that he has transformed into camera obscuras. See transformation.

Jim Hodges (American, 1957-), Dot, 1999, wood and metal panel, ceramic sockets, light bulbs, 31 1/2 x 31 1/2 x 5 inches, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO. See dot.

• "When it is dark, it seems to me as if I were dying, and I can't think any more."
  Claude Monet (1840-1926), French Impressionist painter.
  
  
• "Study nocturnal effects a great deal, lamps, candles, etc. This area of art can become very important today."
  Edgar Degas (1880-1917), French Impressionist. Quoted by Theodore Reff, The Notebooks of Edgar Degas, Oxford, 1976, number 23, p. 45.
  
  
• "E=mc squared" (Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared.)
  Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German mathematician. 1905.
  
  
• "The light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off due to budget cuts."
  Steve Wright, contemporary American comedian.
  
  
• "Light in the absence of eyes illuminates nothing. Visible forms are not inherant in the world, but are granted by the act of seeing. Events contain no meaning in themselves only the meaning that the mind imposes on them."
  Dialogue written for Trevor Goodchild, a character in Æon Flux, a series of animated films created by Peter Chung, Colossal Pictures, and MTV, 2001. Quoted here thanks to Greg Bien.

Also see Caravaggisti, chiaroscuro, color, colorblind, color temperature, crepuscular, dark, day for night, feng shui, filter, fluorescence and fluorescent lamps, fluorescent colors, frisket, girandole, glass, gradation, heighten, highlight, incident light, kaleidoscope, lens, luminosity, mirror, moiré, nocturne, night blindness or nyctalopia, ophthalmology, pearlescent, perception, positive, ray, reflection, refraction, RGB (red green blue), seeing, spectrum, straight, surface, tenebroso or tenebrism, ultraviolet, value, and vitrine.

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