Two women inhabit two expanses of grass and flowers. In Nikolai Kuznetsov’s Holiday of 1879, a young woman lies almost full length in the vegetation, her body settling into the broad horizontal spread of the field. Thirteen years later, in Ilya Repin’s Autumn Bouquet. Portrait of Vera Repin, the artist’s daughter stands upright in anContinue reading “Nikolai Kuznetsov (1850–1929) and Ilya Repin (1844–1930): Fields and Flowers”
Tag Archives: genre painting
Common Life: Giuseppe Maria Crespi (1665–1747) and Genre Painting
La pulce A young woman sits in a cramped interior, pulling her clothing aside as she examines her body. Her head is lowered, one shoulder exposed, and the composition is organised around the awkward concentration of the act. The small oil on copper in the Uffizi is generally known as The Flea (La pulce), althoughContinue reading “Common Life: Giuseppe Maria Crespi (1665–1747) and Genre Painting”
Games, Music and Light: Mattia Preti in Rome
Three secular paintings by Mattia Preti, all generally assigned to his early Roman career in the first half of the 1630s, form a closely related group. Both A Concert, c. 1630–35, now in the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, and the Concert in the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, generally dated to the early or mid-1630s,Continue reading “Games, Music and Light: Mattia Preti in Rome”
