Kathleen's Heart

Kathleen's Heart

2018, oil on linen, 11" x 8"

I've carried this composition in my head since 1975 ... an image of a lovely woman I once knew who had heart surgery, ever cheerful despite the experience. I have no idea what became of her.

The palette is purposely subdued, her hair and scar the brightest tones, complemented by her blue eyes and the green horizontal stripe on her blouse. The colors suit the narrative, but the palette is also a color study for a larger painting I'm about to begin of two sisters, artists, in their studio.

A drawing for this composition floated around the studio for years - it's now lost - and then four or five years ago I drew it again on an 8" x 6" canvas where it lingered until early this month when I made a larger drawing that was 11" x 8".

My intention was simply to realize an image and composition that was based on a memory. After the painting was finished, standing back and looking at it, I suddenly thought about the many Renaissance paintings of saints, imagined portraits, who are identified by the inclusion of an iconographic symbol: Saint Catherine with a spiked wheel, Saint Ambrose with a beehive, Saint Lucy with her eyes on a plate or on a stalk. The strong influence of the early Italian painters upon my work amuses me at times like this ... how it subconsciously affects me. 

Saint Lucy
Francesco del Cossa (ca. 1430 - ca. 14770
ca. 1473/1474,  30" x 22" tempera on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Here are the two drawings for Kathleen's Heart:

drawing #2

2018, pencil on graph paper with pastel tone on reverse, 11" x 8"

drawing #1

pencil and ink on primed canvas, 7 1/2" x 6"

Renaissance Portraits

In New York City today; saw a very excellent exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum: The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini. The exhibition focused entirely on Italian work from the 15th century: paintings, drawings, sculptures, and medallions.

I was especially happy to see Idealized Portrait of a Lady ("Simonetta Vespucci") by Botticelli; on loan from the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, I'd only seen it previously in photographs. A very beautiful painting ... exquisite color and lyrical line ... and strikingly large for a portrait of that period, bigger than life.

l

ca. 32” x 21”   tempera   1475 /1480
Botticelli

The image is believed to be of Simonetta Cattaneo  Vespucci, a young Florentine woman much celebrated for her beauty. She captivated Lorenzo and Giuliano de Medici, was muse to poets and artists, and is said to be the model for the goddess in Botticelli’s Birth of Venus -- though that painting was made eight or nine years after her death and the notion is dismissed by some scholars. She is also believed to be the model for the figure of Venus in Botticelli's Primavera.

She died in 1476 at the age of twenty-two and was buried at the Chiesa di Ognissanti in Florence. In 1510, Botticelli was buried near her, as he had requested.

The Birth of Venus

ca. 68” x 110”    tempera and oil    ca. 1485  

Botticelli

Also exhibited was one of my favorite paintings from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.: Profile Portrait of a Young Man.

A reproduction of that painting (as well as one of the Madonna and Child by Giotto, also at the National Gallery) has always hung near the easel in my studio. I always thought it was by Masaccio, but now it seems that scholars are no longer so sure. In the exhibition, the attribution says "Florentine artist (Paolo Uccello?)" ...

Profile Portrait of a Young Man

ca. 17” x 13”    tempera    1430/1450 

Florentine painter