Posted on 02/27/2019 4:46:05 PM PST by NRx
One of the most celebrated portraits of the Renaissance has traveled from London to New York to take its place in a jewel of an exhibition.
What is this celebrated portrait? Its not the Mona Lisa, and its not Henry VIII. Its not the portrait of a Roman pope or a Venetian doge. And its not by Raphael, Michelangelo or Dürer.
Its of a tailor standing at a table. He holds a pair of glinting black shears in his right hand and the corner of a black cloth, marked with chalk lines, in his left. Hes about to cut the fabric but has first paused to look at us. Head slightly cocked; one side of his face in shadow; one brown eye catching the light, the dark pouch under it like a standing invitation to a secret debauch; the other eye professionally narrowed . . .
You could pout and pose for your cellphone camera all night and not come close to capturing this look. One wants to call it dignified, self-possessed, attentive. Its all of those things. But its also something else something more carnal, uncontained and challenging.
The portrait is by Giovanni Battista Moroni. If you havent heard of him, dont worry. His work warrants attention lots of it but there arent many of his paintings in the United States, which is why Moroni: The Riches of Renaissance Portraiture at the Frick Collection is such a treat...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Images at the linked website.
He writes all of Captain Hook's articles for him ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiKJWXd2_04
Worth the time. Incredible artist.
Had me going there on that Moroni thing.
Wasn’t he a mormon space alien?
Scaled it down a bit for you, though the details and colors do show up sharper on your larger version. It really is an interesting painting.
You sure that isn’t a fashionista at the Oscars?
“Can I interest you in some dirt? This is a pile of the finest Italian dirt. Here, I’ll cut you off a piece.”
“This is a fine piece of dirt, alright. What do you call it?”
“Clod.”
“Claude?”
“Yes.”
I really like the artist’s attention to detail.
He’s not gay, he’s just Renaissance.....
If the HTML specified either only a smaller height or only a smaller width (not both) you would have scaled it down while keeping the right proportion.
Well dressed for a tradesman. But then again he was a tailor. I wonder what his name was and what kind of life he had.
UNDERPAINTINGS MAGAZINE
Moroni: The Riches of Renaissance Portraiture will be the first major exhibition in the United States to focus on the portraiture of Giovanni Battista Moroni (1520/241579/80). A painter of portraits and religious subjects, Moroni is celebrated as an essential figure in the northern Italian tradition of naturalistic painting that includes Leonardo da Vinci, the Carracci, and Caravaggio.
This exhibition, to be shown exclusively at The Frick Collection, brings to light the innovation of the artist, whose role in a larger history of European portraiture has yet to be fully explored.
His famous “Tailor” (National Gallery, London), for example, anticipates by decades the narrative portraits of Rembrandt, and his Pace Rivola Spini (Accademia Carrara, Bergamo), arguably the first independent full-length portrait of a standing woman produced in Italy, prefigures the many women that Van Dyck would paint in this format in the following century.
The Frick will present about twenty of the artists most arresting portraits together with a selection of complementary objects jewelry, textiles, armor, and other luxury items that evoke the material world of the artist and his sitters and reveal his inventiveness in translating it into paint.
Assembled from international private and public collections such as the National Gallery (London), the Accademia Carrara (Bergamo), and the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna), the paintings and objects will bring to life a Renaissance society at the crossroads of the Venetian Republic and Spanish-ruled Milan.
Where: The Frick Collection, New York (NY)
When: February 21; June 2, 2019
You are making a good point here, I got the proportions wrong. Thanks for correcting my efforts. What you posted here looks good.
You’re very welcome. When you set either only the width or only the height in your HTML, HTML itself automatically calculated the other correctly.
Great painting, but silly attire. The doublet makes him look small in the chest and shoulders, while the pumpkin breeches make him look bottom heavy. Strange what used to be considered the height of fashion in ages past.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.