In early Christian painting light stood for revelation; what it revealed, however, was not the world but something transcending physical reality. Light was the source of a vision, and the world became truly visible only in the light of this vision. The light in such paintings followed the principles of this vision and was not subject to the laws of physical reality. Thus the saints, as the source of spiritual revelation, of vision, glowed with light, and this light flowed over into the ordinary world.

After the Renaissance, light increasingly lost its visionary significance. It no longer radiated