Back to the Classics

While writing my Expressionism and Photography article, I was looking back to 19th century to unveil the very beginnings of expressionism in portraiture. Today I would like to travel even a bit further in time and take a better look of 17th century painters, especially that they are less known in pop culture.

Lets begin with Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, a Spanish baroque painter, best known for his biblical scenes which are not particularly my cup of tea. However, while reviewing his work I have came upon one that made me stop and stare:

The lighting is amazingly simple, just one window with a strong, warm sun. We can see there is another source as shadows in the bottom are brighter than in background. Personally, I can’t decide whether it is another window or the painter just added it in his mind to preserve the details of the foreground. Either way I love the simplicity of the strong contrasts that make the boy’s head pop and highlight the details of the scene.

You can check more of Bartolome on wikipedia, however, I haven’t found any as good portraits as this one.

Another not well known by pop culture painter is Jan Lievens. He was an incredible portraitist from Netherlands. At this point I need to admit that I love Dutch portraits from 17th century. They are dark, with a warm light highlighting only the very most important parts, rarely showing any background. Edvard Munch hated those portraits, but after my research concerning Edvard’s works, I know that he drew a lot of inspiration from those paintings as well.

Beautiful balance of light on mans face and hand with skull.

Jan Lievens is said to be a rediscovered old master. I find his paintings really interesting as he worked well both with dark and bright scenes. The below picture glows with light from the left that burns out the details on the turban, yet preserves the darker side and creates a nice shadows that lead to a gripping mood:

The blown highlights? We know it from somewhere, don’t we?

Two more of Lievens works, watch closely how light is unveiling only the important parts and creates the mood by hiding the rest, amazing:

We could spend whole day talking about the Dutch 17th century art, if you fancy it, search the web, you will find literally thousands paintings, it was a whole industry back then, everyone with a bit more money wanted a portrait, and 17th century Netherlands was a really wealthy country. Remember, those were the times of Rembrandt, Steen Vermeer and many more…

Lets now move a bit south to France where at the end of 17th century, Hyacinthe Rigaud painted an impressive self-portrait:

You can notice similar to Lievens, baroque style. The face is highlighted, showing where is the important part. Background and dark parts of clothes are just sketched, creating even more emphasis on the face. A bit highlighted finger draws our attention to brushes, showing who this person is. I love that little detail. The portrait alone would be a great painting, although adding the highlight on fingers and showing those brushes takes it to another level that grabs my eyes so much and makes me look again.

Studying the classics, different historical movements and styles in art is an indispensable part of our education as artists. When I look back and see what those people could achieve without modern equipment, tons of lights and modifiers, I can’t stop smiling. Nowadays so many people say they can’t take good photos because of equipment. These are lies. They can’t take good pictures because they don’t even think of trying with what they have.

Every piece of equipment is just a tool. It can be modified, changed, replaced. Nothing is irreplaceable.

Study those old masters. Learn how they created the atmosphere in their paintings, learn how they lighted their subjects, what grabs attention, what makes your eyes wonder around. Try to understand what tools you could use to achieve those looks and moods. Then try again but forget about tools you just used, use different ones. Be flexible.

You don’t know how to start? Let me help you. Look at the Rigaud’s self-portrait again. I would think: small soft-box at 45/45 just outside the frame set for perfect highlight on subject’s right chick. Don’t look like it? Change the angles and try again. If the soft-box is not lighting the hand enough, try a little mirror or reflector. Really small couse we don’t want to highlight anything else, just the fingers. I guess you get my point.

Study those old master. They are really worth the time.