Fuck Yeah Renaissance History

Masaccio : Saint Peter Baptising the Neophytes (detail) : c. 1427

(Source: yingthing)

Portrait of Anne of Austria, Queen of Spain (detail) by Alonso Sánchez Coello (1532-1588)

oil on canvas, 1571

(Source: paintingses)

iareart:

Knight, Death and the Devil, Dürer, 1513.

teotihuacan:

Correggio, Noli me tangere, c.1525

Portrait of a Woman by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553)

oil on oak, c.1508-1510

(Source: paintingses)

Madonna under the Fir Tree by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553)

oil on panel, 1510

(Source: paintingses)

artispretentious:

Domenico Robusti (Venice, 1560-1635), Portrait of the Doge Giovanni Bembo.

fuckyeahrenaissancewomen:

This is pretty cool. A couple of years ago, a cosmetics study day titled Making Up the Renaissance was held in Edinburgh. Among other events, they ran a workshop which put to the test various cosmetic recipes for the skin, hair and teeth from Caterina Sforza’s Gli Experimenti. Jackie Spicer writes,

Many of Caterina Sforza’s recipes are vague about ingredient quantities and preparation methods, so sometimes the only way to figure out the desired effect was to try it out and see what worked. …

It turns out that many of the recipes may have been more effective than appearances imply—the greenish water from nettle to ‘make your skin white’ wouldn’t have been a dye or cover-up, but would have worked to return skin to a normal shade if it had been reddened due to hives or other allergic rashes.  Likewise, the sensory experience was not disappointing, and often revealed why various recipes would have been thought to be effective.  Our participants experienced tightening sensation in their gums with the tragacanth gum-putty, the numbing mouthwash-like effect of the cure for bad breath, and tingling cheeks brought on by the reduced acqua vita mixture (we used brandy!) for a well-coloured complexion.

It’s often unclear from just reading what these ideas of beauty would have actually looked like to the everyday person, and what they might have tried to emulate.  Paintings might show an idealized form, but what did people look for and see in each other?  For example, writers used terms like ‘fair’ and ‘glistening’ to describe a certain beautiful sheen that doesn’t translate easily to our modern beauty standards.  At the time, being fair was different than just being pale; it resembled ivory and marble, but not snow, and might also include a ‘well coloured’ complexion.  By trying out the recipes, we were able to observe with our own eyes what this might have looked like, in the slight gleam of and egg white finishing wash or the glistening oily effect of white lead face cream.

This in turn helps inform our understanding of artwork, and how images might be read, because we can begin to see how much artistic idealization resembles actual effects and vice versa.  We were surprised and delighted to see that the very white face cream and rather orange rouge water, when made-up on our models gave them a colouration that almost exactly matched the Bordone painting.

There’s more information about the workshop, and Caterina’s recipes, on their website. It’s quite an interesting read.

(via kraken-maid)

hauntedranch:

St. Margaret, c. 1400. Artist Unknown

(Source: hauntedcola)

hauntedranch:

Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, Study of Drapery, c. 1480

(Source: hauntedcola)