A new exhibition of Renaissance portraits reveals how, for the first time, the human face came alive in art (UK)
In the summer of 1521 Albrecht Dürer was travelling in the Low Countries. Just as he was leaving Antwerp on July 2, he received a message from King Christian II of Denmark, who was in town. The monarch asked Dürer to draw his portrait, which he did, in charcoal. Afterwards, Christian asked the artist to dine with him. Dürer noted in his diary, "he behaved graciously towards me". Dürer's drawing of the king still exists, and will be included in the exhibition Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck to Titian which opens on October 15 at the National Gallery in London.
That little story tells us two things. One is that the artist-superstar, companion of the rich and powerful, is not a modern phenomenon. It dates back at least five centuries. The other point is the importance that portraiture had at the height of the Renaissance. Even a king seized the opportunity to be drawn by a great artist.
Portraiture mattered then, and pictures of people from that era are still prominent now. The most celebrated painting in the world - perhaps the best known single image in existence - is a Renaissance portrait: the Mona Lisa. The exhibition is likely to draw crowds to the National Gallery. So the question arises: why are we so interested in depictions of men and women, dead for centuries, whose identities we often do not know?..
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
That little story tells us two things. One is that the artist-superstar, companion of the rich and powerful, is not a modern phenomenon. It dates back at least five centuries. The other point is the importance that portraiture had at the height of the Renaissance. Even a king seized the opportunity to be drawn by a great artist.
Portraiture mattered then, and pictures of people from that era are still prominent now. The most celebrated painting in the world - perhaps the best known single image in existence - is a Renaissance portrait: the Mona Lisa. The exhibition is likely to draw crowds to the National Gallery. So the question arises: why are we so interested in depictions of men and women, dead for centuries, whose identities we often do not know?..