Wordless Wednesday - Portrait of a Young Boy
Wednesday December 17, 2008
Portrait of a Young Boy holding a Child's Drawing, ca. 1515
© Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona
(Why is this child grinning so disturbingly? Could be he's not--perhaps he was simply handled unkindly by the artist. Or, maybe, it's just me. Click on the image for a few particulars, then judge for yourself!)
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Comments
This young man definitely has a strange air about him, but, as you say, there are many ways of portraying any subject.
I suspect it’s simply a case of poor handling. Children’s faces are insanely difficult to draw well, with such gradual changes of plane and soft features – and often quite red, defined lips which can look all wrong when you try to paint them. I feel as though the artist has applied adult conventions and contemporary ideals of beauty and to our eyes, it doesn’t quite work.
I looked at a few of his other pieces and it’s quite interesting – he seems to be in a kind of middle ground stylistically – reminding me of Giotto and even of some of those very early domestic wall-paintings (you know the ones from Pompeii) and then this one with more in common with Leonardo’s style.
A biography said he was influenced by Mantegna. I’m not so familiar with his work, except for one or two well known pieces.
I’m sure you’re right, Helen. Children are hard to draw, paint or sculpt if one hasn’t (at least rudimentarily) studied anatomy. The proportions are unique. And they really weren’t all that good at rendering children during the Renaissance (as if children hadn’t been around for very long …).
Still, I found myself growing rather annoyed with Mr. Caroto, here. The more I researched his work, the more it seemed that he never met an influence he didn’t incorporate. There are artists whose works I love, and artists whose works I intensely dislike, but I will always *respect* an artist who settles on his or her own style. This guy–no, not so much.
It is a female and not a child, to begin with. And the facial expression is one of those subtle conveyences of sardonic wit, which is often misinterpreted by others.