Design Nomenclature / Light & Optics
Rembrandt lighting
Also called Rembrandt, triangle lighting
- Light & Optics
- Composition
- 2D & 3D
This entry has not been translated yet and is shown in English.
A portrait pattern in which the key sits high and roughly forty-five degrees off axis, so the nose shadow meets the cheek shadow and strands an isolated triangle of light on the shadow-side cheek — conventionally no wider than the eye and no longer than the nose.
Not to be confused with
- Loop lightingKey about thirty to forty-five degrees off axis and a little above eye level, producing a small nose shadow that loops down toward the corner of the mouth without ever touching the cheek shadow. The mildest of the named patterns, and the default for most portraiture.
- Split lightingKey placed ninety degrees to the side and near eye level, so the terminator runs down the centre of the face: one half lit, the other in form shadow. The most severe of the named patterns, and the one that rakes every texture on the lit side.
Origin
Named for the painter's habit rather than by him. The label is a twentieth-century studio coinage, applied retrospectively to a pattern he used inconsistently.