User talk:Amandajm/Archives/2011/February

Seriously now

Portraits by Leonardo

The Lucan portrait with five relevant paintings attributed to Leonardo, in chronological order

Ginevra de' Benci, generally accepted as an early work by Leonardo. (C.1475). cut down by about 1/3, probably incl. hands for which detailed study exists.

The Lady with an Ermine, (c. 1485? ) background later repainted, affecting right contour of face. Attrib. based largely on similarity to Ginevra.

Portrait of a Musician, clothes and hand unfinished. (c. 1490) Attrib. based on high quality, dramatic light and similaritites of gaze to Angel in Virgin of the Rocks (Louvre)

Mona Lisa (1503-5)

John the Baptist (layers of varnish distort the colour)

Comment on the paintings

• All the five pictures of firm attribution show a degree of contraposto, with the least being in the Portrait of a Musician which is much the smallest.
• None of the pictures are "head and shoulders". (The Ginevra portait has lost approx. 1/3 of its height.)
• Hands are a feature of all the complete works. It is speculated that a detailed study of hands drawn by Leonardo was for the complete Ginevera portrait.
• The five paintings form a chronological sequence into which the Lucan portrait does not fit comfortably.

1. Ginevra is an early work, influenced by the training in Verrocchio's studio and (like Leonardo's early Madonnas) has retained many formal characteristics of the third quarter of the 1400s.
2. The Lady with the Ermine represents a radical break from the formal poses of portraits, and has strong contraposto, usually reserved at this date for figures that are moving or interacting, eg the female Wind in Botticelli's contemporary Birth of Venus. While the common contemporary profile portraits look out of the picture, 3/4 face portraits usually meet the viewer's eye or look straight ahead,, but to have the eyes turned outward, showing the whites. By this date Leonardo is already experimenting with softening and deepening the shadows in the corners of the mouth. Unlike Ginevra, the bosom of the girl is turned into the shadow, with only her shoulder brightly lit. The slender fingers are separated by deep shadow, and contrast with the hand's cast shadow.
3. The face of the Musician is at a similar angle as the Ermine pic, with the gaze averted, but in not so exaggerated a manner. The contraposto is limited to a slight inclination of the head, counter-balanced by an outward projection of the hand. The main development here is in Lighting. The light is similarly angled to that in the Ermine pic, but is much more dynamic. The face is strongly modelled because the bony and fleshy projections of the face are casting shadows onto its more concave surfaces. The eyelids cast deep shadow, as do the eyelashes on the left side of the painting. The light and cast shadow on the hand and script add dramatic impact.
4. In Mona Lisa, ten years or more later, the artist plays with light that ripples over the soft dimpled surface of her face. In terms of lighting, it has taken the dramatic contrasts of the Musician, and blurred all the edges, creating a work of enormous subtlety. The hand with the separated fingers returns. The light plays across the crumpled folds of the sleeves, and touches the embroidery at the neck, just sufficiently to define the dimensions and planes of every form. Details are present but subordinate. The hair that falls on the left shoulder (viewers right) has helical ringles that on close examination are as structurally defined as those on the forehead of Ginevra. This scientific observation of the structure and behaviours of materials such as hair, water, crumpled cloth and eroded rock is characteristic of Leonardo.
5. John the Baptist, a work of Leonardo's old age, revisits the twisting motion of the Lady with the Ermine (used in the intervening period in a number of figure compositions). Again the eyes are turned at an unusual angle in relation to the turn of the head, the head is down but the eyes turn up, and, with the gesture, challenge the viewer. The drama of light and shade is achieved by both intensity and sfumato.

Given the age of the figure in the Lucan protrait, if it is indeed by Leonardo himself, then it must fall chronologically somewhere between the Portrait of a Musician (sometimes considerd a self-portrait) and the Mona Lisa.

Its highly conservative lighting, its lack of contraposto, its lack of hands, its conservative 3/4 view, its lack of drama, lack of cast shadow, lack of bodily form, conservative treatment of hair all mean that it does not sit happily between the Musician and the Mona Lisa, or between the dynamic Lady with an Ermine, and the Musician. It can hardly be earlier.

The Lucan Portrait is absolutely typical of a conservative, post-Leonardo, painting of the 1500s.

I am not invited to the conference, but perhaps somebody who will be there, will take these comments into account and present some of them.

Amandajm (talk) 03:58, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Dispute on Mr. Barbatelli statements

We received an OTRS ticket from Mr. Barbatelli (in Italian, but I made a brief summary in English): he says that he never stated what The Times' article says that he stated, for so the Times article to be wrong.

I suggested him to ask for a rectification and I assured him that a notice would be put in the voice - what I've done. -- Sannita - not just another it.wiki sysop 00:08, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Amandajm kindly asked me for clarification, so here we go. Mr. Barbatelli says that:

1. It was Prof. Peter Hohenstatt that stated that the portrait is a Leonardo's self-portrait;
2. The painting was NOT found in Acerenza, nor Mr. Barbatelli said - or even thought (literal quotation) - that it was found there.

-- Sannita - not just another it.wiki sysop 11:40, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I think that I have taken care of Barbatelli's concerns.

Amandajm (talk) 02:37, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I really wonder how a Times' journalist could have been so shallow! Even confusing the town where it was found. I really get amazed when I see how poor is the way some Anglophones deal with Italy. --'''Attilios''' (talk) 10:15, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Ciao! Explain me the situation... how can I help? I've just checked your comparison of portraits above. In my ignorant's opinion, I see difficult it can be a Leonardo self-portrait. The stylistical quality is far poorer than his! But, this is just my ignorant opinion... let me know and have a nice night! --'''Attilios''' (talk) 08:56, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, I'll keep my antennas on. --'''Attilios''' (talk) 08:05, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Question

Hello Amandajm,

I notice that you have removed a link several times from the Gothic Architecture page. The webpage is heavily referenced and contains image galleries of the art form. I also notice that you continue to replace it with a link that is broken. If you fix the other link, both links can coexist as they are helpful resources. Otherwise, this will continue to be a back and forth.

Regards — Preceding unsigned comment added by GothicArchitect (talk • contribs) 06:55, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Howdy!

Actually, "Howdy" is Western American, and I'm from the East, but I had to think of some regionally appropriate response to your "G'day". Close enough, I guess, since either way I'm on the other side of the earth from you. :-) Thanks much for the good words. I've had some time off (taking some use-or-lose vacation days), so I hauled home a ton of books about Keats from three libraries, and that's practically all I've been reading for weeks. Good stuff, too. Bewell's book is fascinating, and I'm glad that working on the "To Autumn" article steered me to it. And if not for your having pointed out some pretty serious deficiencies in that article, I never would have let myself get caught up in it, so it's all thanks to you! Well, I suppose I should be off now. It's getting pretty late in this time zone. Cheers, from another Colonial, Alan W (talk) 05:49, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

In case you didn't see

sounds like a yes to me, but you'll know, cheers Johnbod (talk) 14:26, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Flora (bust)

Hi - I've left an enquiry on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Visual arts at [1] about the attribution of this wax sculpture. I've been told that you are the person to speak to. Thanks for any help you can give. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 19:16, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello, Amandajm. You have new messages at Scewing's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Happy New Year!

Well, I hope that as 2011 arrives (as I see it has in your part of the world), you are satisfied with what we accomplished with To Autumn last year (hard to believe that that is all "last year" already). As you may have seen, I read a whole bunch of other sources and made some more changes. After it all, I have to say that you were spot-on in your pointing out the glaring omission of any mention of "personification" in the article. The term is all over the source material!

You were absolutely right to point out that the article did not come up to FA standards. I hope you agree with me that, after the work we both put in, it probably now does. I ended up doing a lot more than I originally intended to, but I now feel that it was worth it.

Happy New Year!

--Alan W (talk) 01:08, 1 January 2011 (UTC)