Benedetto Gennari and Chiaroscuro

Benedetto Gennari's Cleopatra is an Italian Baroque painting created cerca 1675, and like other pieces of this period, Cleopatra has certain stylistic devices that create drama within the piece, drama that instills a sense of foreboding, a sort of "calm before the storm" feeling when viewed. Composition, color and the employment of chiaroscuro help to create that mood within this painting.

Cleopatra has a rather simple composition because it does not contain too many elements. There are, for the most part, four in total: Cleopatra herself (holding the snake), the bed on which she sits, the drapery and the curtain. This piece has one focal point, otherwise known as the points to which the eye is first drawn. Cleopatra's face is the focal point, both thematically and compositionally. Cleopatra's face draws the eye because it is fairly centralized within the composition, but in addition, her face is within the space between two major folds of the curtain that hangs behind and possibly above her. In addition to that, the movement of the piece is centralized around her face as well. If beginning at her elbow on the left side of the piece, the eye travels along her right arm to her face and then down her left arm and across to the left side of the composition once more, moving upwards along her drapery once more to her elbow. Her face is, in this way, like the peak of a mountain in that it rests at the pinnacle of the main compositional shape. The other form of compositional movement that exists within the piece can be seen along the curtain, which divides the piece in a subtle manner in the way it falls downward on a diagonal, mimicking slightly the position of Cleopatra's figure. The composition helps to create that sense of foreboding through the echoed compositional movement and structure between Cleopatra's figure and the curtain, connected by the focal point that is her face.

Chosen colors play an important role in the mood of the painting, and those chosen can essentially be broken into four choices: The golden drapery, the plum-colored curtain, the dark, grayed out brown of the snake, Cleopatra's hair and the background, and the bright white and flesh tone of the bed sheets and flesh tone of Cleopatra's figure. Gold often represents regality and wealth because of the value of the mineral itself and the richness of the color, therefore gold is quite an appropriate choice for Cleopatra since she was a queen. Plum is also a very rich color, because of the proportions of red and blue used to create it and is close to the color of blood which is the essence of life. The grayed out brown color is used minimally, but is not without influence nonetheless, for it instills within the painting a sense of neutrality to balance the richness of the colors surrounding it. The bright, and comparatively close-to-white color of the sheets and Cleopatra's flesh typically hints to the sense of purity. The combination and interaction and placement of these colors helps to create the dramatic sense of foreboding through transitions between the gold and plum colors, passing through the brighter hues and connected by the neutral brown color.

The use of chiaroscuro in this painting is the largest contributor to the sense of dramatic foreboding because it creates a sublime transition between the light and dark values of the piece. The light is brightest in the foreground of the piece and dissipates within the spatial illusionistic depth. In that way, the light also moves, for the most part, from left to right, seemingly waving in and out through the surface of the piece. The chiaroscuro creates a dramatic tone to the painting through this undulating placement of value within the surface.

The foreboding mood of this piece is created through the collaboration of composition, color choice and the use of chiaroscuro. The mood and tone of this piece fits well with the story it represents, which is the suicide of Cleopatra.