Portraits After Existing Prototypes
By (author) Koenraad Jonckheere
Rubens was mesmerised by faces. He studied physiognomy, the pseudo-science that began making headway in the sixteenth century, which postulated that a person’s character could be read from their facial features. He made geometrical analyses of the faces of ancient emperors and heroes. He invested a great deal of time in detailed anatomical studies, sometimes based on nature, and equally often on antique busts and coins. At times it seems as though the master wanted to know and understand every nook and cranny of the human face. To this end he studied man himself and the way in which the ancients dealt with nature. His best portrait copies, thus, are not strictly copies but rather studies in which art history, craftsmanship, literature and theory merge into an emulation of art and nature. They are works in which the artist was looking for what ultimately captivated him the most: man in all of his myriad facets, and the perspectives art afforded to better understand man.
- By (author) Koenraad Jonckheere
Other Titles in this Series
Portraits of Unidentified and Newly Identified Sitters Painted in Antwerp
Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard XIX.3
Volume 19.3
Corpus Rubenianum Part IV
The Holy Trinity, The Life of the Virgin, Madonnas, and The Holy Family: The Holy Trinity and The Life of the Virgin
Volume 4.1
Copies and Adaptations from Renaissance and Later Artists
German and Netherlandish Artists
Volume 26.1
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