To prepare for the show, exhibit curator Paul Martineau spent several months plowing through 1, 200 boxes of prints in a cold cinder-block room at the Herb Ritts Foundation in Hollywood, looking for shots with the L.A.-bred photographer's signature style: glowing California light, bold shadows, bare skin and film-noir settings.

WSJ: Herb Ritts at the Getty: Capturing the Soul of Fashion

Painter after painter capitulates to the allure of warm ochre-painted walls and ancient brick, umbrella pines and bare hills, revealed by low, diffused, golden light.

WSJ: Appealing to Modern Eyes | The Path of Nature | Metropolitan Museum of Art | By Karen Wilkin

The unstageability that has so often deterred directors in the past was overcome by a masterly use of light and shadow on a stage which was kept almost completely bare.

ECONOMIST: The stage of nations

The sun had dropped behind the bluffs already, so that the tops of the bare trees showed up finely spiky, like hair or fur, against a yellow glow of light from somewhere out of sight.

NEWYORKER: Friendly Fire