Art Talk: Guest Blogger, Joia Doiron

From the Renaissance Era we have included Jan van Eyck’s Man in a Red Turban. Although the identity of the subject in this portrait has been unidentifiable over time, the medium of oil paints have created an intense and more detailed work than other portraits of the time. The eyes show details such as wrinkles, moisture and glazing over the eyes, and perfectly tailored fold of the turban. These details provide the reality of aging, a concept avoided at all costs by beauty ideals typically portrayed in art at the time. Because of this, the eyes of the subject will draw you in, in ways that other portraits of the Renaissance do not possess.

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As a part of the Baroque and Neoclassical Eras, we have included Diego Velasquez’s Water Carrier of the Seville. Despite the use of manipulation of light, a characteristic unavoidable in most works of art of the time, the subject matter depicts real people from a real moment in time. The attention to detail, using what later becomes known as still life painting techniques, pulls you into the moment and the story as if you yourself were seeing this.

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In representation of the 19th and 20th Century Era, Gustave Courbet’s The Stone Breakers is included in the exhibit. This was among one of the first paintings to go against the status quo of idealism, and to only paint what one could see. A younger boy and an older man are shown faceless and nameless, a technique of relatability to viewers, in action while breaking stones. This type of portrait easily brings the viewer in as they picture themselves, the average non-wealthy citizen, doing such work. The gritty textures and loose style invite the viewer to make this illustration their own reality.