Posts Tagged ‘portrait painter’

La Bella Portrait by Titian

Friday, November 11th, 2011

Titian or Tiziano Vecelli was born on August 27, 1576, an Italian painter who was renowned as one of the best painters in the Venetian School during the 16th century. He spent his early years in Pieve di Cadore in the Republic of Venice, in which his nickname “da Cadore” was derived.

Titian’s subject matter focused on landscapes, portraits, and mythological or religious themes. As an Italian painter, he relied heavily on the usage of color that gave a profound effect in the Italian Renaissance Art. This also contributed to a classical color technique employed by future painters of Western Art. During the course of Titian’s painting passion, his outlook on using painting techniques have changed but his excellence in manipulating colors remained intact. When he started doing more mature themes, his use of vivid and luminous colors was gone and transformed into darker and mixed hues.

One of Titian’s masterpieces was “La Bella: The Woman in a Blue Dress”. The La Bella portrait painting can be dated to have been made in the mid 1530’s. The portrait displays a woman dressed in blue gown, embellished with tantalizing gold embroidery with well defined garment design and perfected with dazzling jewelries of gold chain, rubies, and pearls. The painting shows off a graceful woman in a very magnificent dress fully clad with jewelries to accentuate her elegance and status symbol. Francesco Maria I della Rovere, a Duke in Urbino who was a mercenary leader in Florence and Venice, was the first owner of this portrait painting.

Titian used the usual color technique in vivid and luminous tints. The association of colors brilliantly emphasized the beautiful woman’s societal status and grace; a symbolical understanding on what a member of the Venetian family is. The painting exudes various speculations of the identity of the beautiful woman in the portrait. It was believed that she was the suspected lover of Titian but it remained to be a fabricated story. The portrait painting “Eleonora Gonzaga” was introduced after “La Bella” which resembled exactly the latter’s profile, though La Bella connoted a more demure personality and a sense of discreet sensuality.

Titian’s concept in “La Bella” painting delivered subtlety, charm, sensuality, and classic elegance. Titian remained to be a brilliant painter, unsurpassed through the years. His mastery in conveying message in his portraits was profoundly substantial to the extent that it greatly influenced the emotions of his audience. Titian is considered to be an icon in the Renaissance Art because of his brilliance in painting; the subjects of his works were perfectly cohesive to deliver a poetic image that emanated paragons of beauty.

His great technique in using colors and brushes were very brilliant and it never failed to convey an idealistic Italian Renaissance Art, a period which greatly influenced today’s Western Art. Titian’s meticulous painting idealism brought realism in his subjects and themes.

Author:  Shyxter

Francisco de Goya

Saturday, October 1st, 2011


Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes, well-known as Francisco Goya, was born on the 30th of March, 1746 in Fuendetodos, Aragon, Spain. At the age of 14, he became an apprentice of a painter named Jose Luzan. He then later moved to Madrid to study painting. He was married to Josefa Bayeu in 1773, a sister of Francisco Bayeu who was a Saragossa artist. He later became a well-known portrait painter to the Spanish aristocracy and was considered a romantic painter and print-maker; he was then recognized as a painter to the king in 1786. In 1789, he was designated as a court painter. In 1792, he was left permanently deaf by an illness that struck him. He continued to paint more portrait paintings until he died in April 16, 1828 in Bordeaux at the age of 82. He was buried in Bordeaux but his remains were transferred to the Royal Chapel of St. Anthony of La Florida in Madrid in the year 1919.

Francisco de Goya was considered as one of the most famed painter of all time because he was a Romantic painter at first before he began to paint religious paintings. He was considered by many people as the Father of Modern Art because his unique perspective was not only fresh but also original. His paintings, not only portrait paintings, became famous also because of the delicate tonalities that can be found in them. The majority of Goya’s paintings are famous for having realistically bold techniques and haunting satire. The subversive and imaginative elements that can be found in his paintings provided as a model for later generation artists.

De Goya had a unique capability to find a universal and timeless meaning in a certain instances of human behavior and became an inspiration to the succeeding generations of artists. He also influenced some of the great artists in the 20th century, the most famous is Pablo Picasso. The succeeding lineage of influences that was made by Goya has encouraged a lot of people to give a label as the “first modernist” of his time.

The best example of Francisco de Goya’s renowned paintings is Christ Crucified, which is considered as one of the best in the world. The Christ Crucified is a portrait painting of Christ who is nailed on the cross. The style that he used in this painting is neoclassical. De Goya obeyed the rules of the Spanish Baroque Iconography in portraying the Crucifixion of Christ, as created by Francisco Pacheco. He removed here the emphasis of devotional features such as drama, presence of blood, and the like, by obeying the rules. This was in order to have the attention of people on the soft modeling of the painting. This painting is one of his most special portrait paintings since this area of painting is one of the most difficult to convey.

Many of Francisco de Goya’s famous paintings are being displayed in the El Prado art museum in Madrid.

Author:  Shyxter