A wonderful way of putting it. Chiaroscuro is a "lossy" compression, like
jpeg and like theater. To conserve space and make it transportable.
Chiaroscuro is also a lovely word, it has a rhythm to it and (what's the
term?) sounds like what it is. My mouth does a little dance as I say it out
loud. Like Nabokov's Lolita.
In terms of compression, I'm reminded of Huxley's "The Doors of Perception"
where he writes about our brain's ability to block out information, to lose
it, in order to articulate our personal world and using mescalin to cause
the brain to unblock.
Robbin Murphy