"Portrait of Juana of Austria and a Young Girl captures Juana, a woman of high ambition who married at seventeen, was widowed two years later, ruled Spain for five years, and was a Jesuit. Artist Sofonisba Anguissola was a female painter of the Italian Renaissance.
Courtesy of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston." (http://www.gardnermuseum.org/collection/anguissola_p26w15.asp).
This painting relates to what we have talked about Sofonisba in class. This woman shows age and knowledge by her facial features. She has that eye gaze of a woman of age, as well as the dark coloring of her clothing. She looks like she has experienced a great deal throughout her lifetime. The young girl once again looks brighter and to me that seems like she has less life experience. She also doesn't look as stern as the Juana does. As well as, the clothing they are wearing shows a sense of wealth and power. The child's dress is elaborate with designs and what seems to be a variety of materials and Juana seems to have a simple elequent black outfit with minimal design.
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Great choice- what exactly do you mean by "woman of age"? do you mean she's mature? self-confident? Couldn't we picture the child as the younger version of the woman?
ReplyDeletePainting also shows that Anguissola was a very highly regarded painter in her time, getting commissions to paint the highest nobility
also, notice what a dramatically stark, minimalist composition, with the dark, blank wall and the very geometric shape of the window behind the figures.