beside the easel

Marten Looten , 1632 by Rembrandt van Rijn July is a month in art history that has produced some of the most idiosyncratic, passionate, sensitive and rebellious artists of all time. If you don't believe me, consider these names: Rembrandt , Artemisia Gentileschi (and her father Orazio) , Camille Pissarro , Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot , Edgar Degas , Salvator Rosa ...all born in July. All rebellious in their own particular way. All brilliant. Let's explore a few of these great painters and find out why... Marten Looten was a wealthy Dutch merchant from Leiden who commissioned this portrait. Although understated compared to some of his less formal portraiture, Rembrandt creates here a likeness that is painted with such sensitivity and depth that those penetrating eyes, tight lips, and thick hands convey a person who breathes through the paint. Normally Rembrandt loved using texture in his sitter's clothing to describe and identify their very soul, yet here the ma...

   The Penitent Mary Magdalen, ca. 1622                  David Contemplating the Head of Goliath, ca. 1610 Artemisia Gentileschi                                                          Orazio Gentileschi Probably the only father-daughter artist team in history, the Gentileschi's were to capture the essence of Caravaggio and the Baroque. I had the pleasure of seeing a lot of both artist's work in Rome a couple of years back, and I always found their paintings moving and vibrant. Artemisia's fame eventually outshone her father's, and even to this day as a feminist icon with a film and a documentary made of her life she inspires women, but the study of Orazio as an influential painter and father needs to be recognized also. Comparing the two very different paintings above we see a styl...