sfumato refers to what painting
Sfumato and Leonardo da Vinci. Sfumato refers to the subtle gradation of tone which was used to obscure sharp edges and create a synergy between lights and shadows in a painting. As Ernst Gombrich, one of the twentieth-centuries most famous art historians, explains: [t]his is Leonardo's famous invention â¦ the blurred outline and mellowed colors that allow one form to merge with another and always leave something to our imagination.