Track by track 154 Clair-Obscur

Archive number: 154

Title: Clair-Obscur
Main Album: The Focus Family Album
Track number: 10
Genre: Progressive Rock Instrumental
Studio: Unknown
Length: 3:12
Composer: Thijs van Leer

Musicians: Thijs van Leer piano, Menno Gootjes guitar, Udo Pannekeet bass, Pierre van der Linden drums

Producer: Geert Scheigrond
Engineer: Geert Scheigrond
Label: In and Out of Focus Recordings
Date of recording/release: 2017

Other versions: The track is also on Focus 11

Notes: We begin with the piano and electric guitar weaving a pleasant melody twice over before the snare-led drums and bass come in at 00:43. The tune meanders rather before the original theme reasserts itself and then meanders again. At 2:34-36 there is something of a ritartando on solo piano before the piece abruptly ends shortly after that.

Clair-obscur is the French version of the Italian Chiaroscuro, an art term that simply means light-dark and refers to the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achieve a sense of volume in modelling three-dimensional objects and figures. Similar effects in cinema, and black and white and low-key photography, are also called chiaroscuro.

Further specialised uses of the term include chiaroscuro woodcut for coloured woodcuts printed with different blocks, each using a different coloured ink; and chiaroscuro drawing for drawings on coloured paper in a dark medium with white highlighting.

Chiaroscuro is one of the canonical painting modes of the Renaissance (alongside cangiante, sfumato and unione). Artists known for using the technique include Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Vermeer and Goya.