Clair-obscur offers a rich case-study for the use of metaphor in eighteenth-century France. Far from being a neutral translation from the Italian chiaroscuro, the appearance of the term is intimately linked to the Querelle du coloris, whose stakes are specifically French. Its propagation at the turn of the eighteenth century may explain why it was exported away from the fine arts towards figurative meanings, often bearing its originally polemical dimension and illustrating a shift in aesthetic perception and reception. This volume aims to provide some evidence for this hypothesis in fields such as drama, music and dance, philosophy and fiction.