beside the easel

L'Atelier du peintre, ca.1740 Born November 25, 1699 in Southern France, Pierre Subleyras was a late-Baroque painter. At the age of 29 he won a scholarship to study in Rome and remained there for the rest of his life painting mainly alterpieces and portraiture. Subleyras had a unique eye for composition, color and figure arrangement, along with an astute sense of perception and presence in his portraits that is distinctively his own. One can see the heavy Italian influence yet there is also a clear French pride in his work, and most often he is an eclectic blend of the two, which makes him very interesting to study as a truly underrated and brilliant painter who had an amazing range. In the painting above in his studio, we see a self-reflexivity that is almost Post-Modern, showing himself painting some of his most famous works as if some kind of greatest hits album cover or something. He is poking fun of himself as an artist carelessly mass-producing work as if in a factory...