My prior Art posts can be found HERE.
How do we move away from being a civilization that produces art that causes comments like, “my five year old could make this,” back to being one that creates beauty and inspires deep questions? We must reject modernity and embrace tradition. To embrace tradition, we must first learn about it.
Let’s study art history together.
The Lady With the Veil
| Artist | Alexander Roslin |
|---|---|
| Year | 1768 |
| Medium | oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 65 cm × 54 cm (26 in × 21 in) |
| Location | Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
As portraits go, this is one of the best I’ve ever seen. The detailing is incredible and life-like (Roslin is one of the best to ever paint fabric and embroidery), and the subject is beautiful, mysterious, and with eyes that seem very much alive, pleased, and in love. I suppose it’s good for the artist then that his model was his wife.
(more via wiki)
The Lady with the Veil, The Lady with the Fan, or The Veiled Lady is a 1768 oil-on-canvas portrait by Alexander Roslin of his wife Marie-Suzanne Giroust in Bolognese dress. The painting was displayed at the Salon of 1769 at the Louvre in Paris. The work was mentioned in an inventory from Österbybruk as Portrait of the One-Eyed Woman; it is now in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm under its current title.[1] It was featured in the 1972 Swedish series of stamps Gustaviansk konst.
(and also via artsandculture.google.com)
The Lady with the Veil is one of the Nationalmuseum’s best loved paintings. The woman in the portrait is partially hidden by a black silk veil. Beneath the veil she is dressed for a special occasion in white lace and pink silk. During the 18th century, theatre was an important part of the life of the upper classes. Dressing up, disguising oneself and playing dramatic roles was a common pastime. The Lady with the Veil shows how one could dress up à la bolonaise – in the style of Bologna.
The woman is smiling in a tempting fashion yet she seems to want to remain secretive. She only shows part of herself. There are many anonymous portraits of women in collections around the world. Often they have been part of a pair of portraits of man and wife – so called pendant portraits. It is not unusual for such portraits to have become separated over the years. And since the influence of the women has been underestimated in writing the history of art, their names and identities have often been forgotten. For this reason, many of Roslin’s portraits now bear the title “Unknown Woman”. But the Lady with the veil is not one of these forgotten women. For she was Alexander Roslin’s wife: the French portrait artist Marie Suzanne Giroust.
Fans were not just a practical item for social gatherings. Fans could also be used for sending secret messages. There were numerous ways of holding, opening and closing fans. Each way meant something specific. The lady with the veil has folded her fan and is using it to stroke her cheek. This might mean: I love you! It was once the artist himself who received this message while he was painting his wife. Nowadays we are the recipients as we regard the painting and perhaps we let ourselves be seduced by the veiled woman…
