review of painting

Rembrandt Self Portrait c.1660
March 31/2010

This magnificent painting differs from many of Rembrandt’s earlier self-portraits in that it shows the master as a working artist, rather than in some assumed identity. The mood and tone of this self-portrait are controlled and relatively light and clear. Rembrandt stands erect and alert, firmly grasping the weapons – palette, brushes, and maulstick – with which he will take on the changing the art of the world. The battle dress is not an exotic costume but causal garments of a working artist.
When he painted this portrait he was fifty-four, had visibly aged, and he painted his hair as white. Only the clarity of the eyes and his own vision remain unchanged.
Rembrandt’s study of his face has clearly helps him to paint other people’s faces without exaggerating any feature. He has also subtly manipulated the light to stress the three dimensional qualities of the sitter’s form. The cool colors and the sharp contrasts of color and value also help to strengthen the work’s lively impression.
This painting proves that Rembrandt’s search for social status during his life was a self-conscious one. There is little doubt that he had grown wealthy through his art. But the mood of this self-portrait indicates a yearning for the high-social status that he was dreaming of. Many of his personal pictures therefore must have been intended for the master himself rather than for the sale to his many patrons and clients. Thanks to that today we can not only enjoy his art but also we know how he looks like.



Mona Lisa by Leonardo DaVinci
March 31/2010

Leonado Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is the most famous painting in the word although the painter died five hundred years ago. His painting is the subject of speculation for centuries and even today we do not who Mona Lisa was. Many people say that the she is the artist himself. The painting of the Renaissance master from Florence influenced almost every artist in the last 20th century. The famous Vienna psychologist and dream reader Sigmund Freud suggests that the Mona Lisa (specifically her smile) is a manifestation of Leonardo's submerged memory of the birth mother from whom he was estranged at age four. Freud theorizes she expressed an unnatural affection toward her young son (http://www.studiolo.org/Mona/MONASV12.htm).
You may like or not like Mona Lisa, but she is not a romantic myth, which made Leonardo a famous painter. She is just an ugly woman, who does not wear any jewelry and her finger are long and thin. She is a fat woman who looks straight at you asking; what do you think about my smile? She sits upright like a doll with her arms folded, which is also a sign of her reserved posture. Only her gaze is fixed on the observer. Her surprise and confusion is well hidden in her smile; you can see this in her eyes. She wonders why you want to look at her? Since the brightly lit face is practically framed with various much darker elements (hair, veil, shadows), the observer's attraction to Mona Lisa's face is brought to an even greater extent.