Luca Giordano, Self-Portrait as an Alchemist, c. 1660, oil on canvas, 116 × 96 cm, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, inv. 689. Image: © Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan – MiC. Luca Giordano returned to his own appearance throughout his long career. His earliest experiments in self-representation include Saint Luke Painting the Virgin, now in the MuseoContinue reading “Four Self-Portraits by Luca Giordano”
Tag Archives: portraiture
Nikolai Kuznetsov (1850–1929) and Ilya Repin (1844–1930): Fields and Flowers
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”
Titian and Isabella d’Este: The Truth of a Portrait
Two painted versions of Isabella d’Este have come to define her association with Titian, although neither records a simple encounter between painter and sitter. One, generally called Isabella in Red, is known principally through a copy made by Peter Paul Rubens after a lost Titian and shows Isabella as a mature woman. The other, IsabellaContinue reading “Titian and Isabella d’Este: The Truth of a Portrait”
The Depth of the Surface: Vittorio Corcos (1859–1933) and the Art of Appearance
Formation and the vero Vittorio Corcos enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence in November 1875 and progressed with conspicuous ease. Admitted directly to Enrico Pollastrini’s drawing course, he passed his examinations and, in 1876–77, received a silver medal for a figure study copied dal vero. Despite this success, he soon became dissatisfiedContinue reading “The Depth of the Surface: Vittorio Corcos (1859–1933) and the Art of Appearance”
Giovanna Carolina Carlesimo / Juana Romani (1867–1923): Art, Identity and Self-Fashioning between Italy and Paris
Juana Romani, La fille de Théodora (A Dark-Haired Beauty), 1898, oil on panel, 81.3 × 63.8 cm, current location unknown. Image: Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Origins and migration Juana Romani was born Giovanna Carolina Carlesimo in Velletri on 30 April 1867, in circumstances far removed from the Parisian art world in which she would laterContinue reading “Giovanna Carolina Carlesimo / Juana Romani (1867–1923): Art, Identity and Self-Fashioning between Italy and Paris”
Salvator Rosa: Portraits, Self-Portraits and the Construction of Artistic Identity
Portraiture occupies an unusual place within the work of Salvator Rosa (1615–1673). Although celebrated by his contemporaries for landscapes, battle scenes and increasingly ambitious history paintings, he repeatedly returned to images of the individual figure, producing portraits of remarkable variety and psychological intensity. Some are straightforward likenesses, others adopt theatrical or philosophical roles, while stillContinue reading “Salvator Rosa: Portraits, Self-Portraits and the Construction of Artistic Identity”
Two Women in White: Whistler’s Symphony in White, No. 2 and De Nittis’s Giornata d’inverno
This essay brings together Giuseppe De Nittis’s Giornata d’inverno. Ritratto della signora De Nittis of 1882 and James McNeill Whistler’s Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl of 1864 as an accostamento: a juxtaposition of two works that share a contextual affinity. They are separated by nearly two decades. Yet Edmond de Goncourt’sContinue reading “Two Women in White: Whistler’s Symphony in White, No. 2 and De Nittis’s Giornata d’inverno”
Corot: A Girl Reading
A young woman sits absorbed in a small book, her head inclined towards its pages in quiet concentration. Corot has reduced the setting to little more than a subdued arrangement of warm browns and ochres, relieved by the white of her blouse and the open pages before her, while the deep red of her jacketContinue reading “Corot: A Girl Reading”
