Lights and Shadows of Paris

Oil on canvas. The work is executed in monochrome, with the image built exclusively on values of light and shadow. Chiaroscuro defines shapes, volumes and depth, without the use of chromatic variations.

A monochromatic reinterpretation of a Toulouse-Lautrec poster, the work probes the dualism of light and shadow in fin-de-siècle Paris. The use of a single color heightens contrasts: lights emerge as a symbol of the artistic fervor of cabarets, of performance and the cultural vitality of the era; shadows, in turn, reveal the more intimate and restless side of bohemian life, marked by excess, fragility and marginality. Thus the monochrome becomes a narrative instrument, capable of condensing in a single vision the two souls of that artistic period.