. Sacred Love Versus Profane Love. 1602-1603 Oil on canvas. 179 x 118 cm. Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin]]Chiaroscuro (Italian for clear-dark) is a term in art for a contrast between light and dark. The term is usually applied to bold contrasts affecting a whole composition, but is also more technically used by artists and art historians for the use of effects representing contrasts of light, not necessarily strong, to achieve a sense of volume in modelling three-dimensional objects