Art may commemorate the sitter, but may also change him, even cancel him, despite the wishes of both parties. . . when high talent, let along genius comes in, the painter is preparing an image which will represent the sitter after death, and thus in some way replace the living person.
-Julian Barnes, The Man in the Red Coat
» Read more about: The Painted I: Jan Van Eyck »
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Best known as a member of the Italian Futurist movement, Giacomo Balla—painter, sculptor, and set designer—was born on this day (July 18) in 1871 in Turin, Italy.
Balla had little formal art training. In 1895, while still in his early 20s, the painter left Turin to live in Rome. His work was included in the 1899 Venice Biennale…
Why has God given me such magnificent talent? It is a curse as well as a great blessing.
-Albrecht Dürer
In 1500 Albrecht Dürer, aged 28, painted the last of his self portraits, a stunning vision of the painter as distinctly Christ-like and mimicking the Salvator Mundi gesture. The inscription to…
» Read more about: The Painted I: Albrecht Dürer’s Last Self-Portrait »
Does an audience complete an artwork?