Sfumato - Wikipedia Sfumato Detail of the face of Mona Lisa showing the use of sfumato, particularly in the shading around the eyes. Look up sfumato in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Sfumato ( Italian : ( sfuˈmaːto ), English : / sfuːˈmɑːtoʊ / ) is one of the four canonical painting modes of Renaissance art ( alongside cangiante, chiaroscuro, and unione ). Contents 1 Etymology 2 Technique 3 Leonardo da Vinci and other practitioners 4 Notes 5 External links Etymology The word `` sfumato '' comes from the Italian language and is derived from `` fumo '' ( smoke, fume ). `` Sfumato '' translated into English means soft, vague or blurred. In Italian the word is often used as an adjective ( like `` biondo sfumato '' for pale blonde hair ) or as a verb ( `` l'affare è sfumato '' would mean the deal has gone up in smoke ). Technique The technique is a fine shading meant to produce a soft transition between colours and tones, in order to achieve a more believable image. It is most often used by making subtle gradations that do not include lines or borders, from areas of light to areas of dark. The technique was used not only to give an elusive and illusionistic rendering of the human face but also to create rich atmospheric effects. Leonardo da Vinci described the technique as blending colours, without the use of lines or borders `` in the manner of smoke ''. Leonardo da Vinci and other practitioners Leonardo da Vinci became the most prominent practitioner of sfumato, for instance, in Virgin of the Rocks and in his famous painting of the Mona Lisa. Leonardo da Vinci described sfumato as `` without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke or beyond the focus plane ''. Apart from Leonardo, other prominent practitioners of sfumato included Correggio, Raphael and Giorgione. Raphael 's Virgin of the Field is a famous example ( look especially at her face ). Students and followers of Leonardo ( called Leonardeschi ) also tried their hands at sfumato after Leonardo : artists such as Bernardino Luini and Funisi. Notes Jump up ^ Hall, Marcia ( 1994 ). Color and Meaning : Practice and Theory in Renaissance Painting. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 521 - 45733 - 0. Jump up ^ Earls, Irene ( 1987 ). Renaissance Art : A Topical Dictionary. Greenwood Press. p. 263. ISBN 0 - 313 - 24658 - 0. Jump up ^ `` Sfumato ''. Art Painting Artist. External links Leonardo da Vinci : anatomical drawings from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, exhibition catalog fully online as PDF from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on this technique ( see index ) Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sfumato. This article related to art techniques is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sfumato&oldid=810960705 '' Categories : Art terminology Italian words and phrases Painting techniques Art stubs Talk Contents About Wikipedia Azərbaycanca Беларуская Български Bosanski Català Чӑвашла Čeština Dansk Deutsch Ελληνικά Español Esperanto Euskara فارسی Français Gaeilge Galego 한국어 Hrvatski Bahasa Indonesia Italiano עברית ქართული Latviešu Lietuvių Magyar Nederlands 日本 語 Norsk Occitan Polski Português Română Русский Scots Slovenčina Slovenščina Српски / srpski Suomi Svenska Türkçe Українська 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 18 November 2017, at 16 : 28. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia ® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. About Wikipedia

Question: leonardo is know for his techniques of shading called
Answer: sfumato