Lady with a Unicorn (c.1505)
Here's Raphael's "Lady with a Unicorn," for those who were grossed out by the zit popping art film. It looks to me like the unicorn watched the video and the lady is peeved that her pet had been subjected to such trauma.
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Hmm. If you put a sheet over that unicorn and taught it to walk sideways...
lil' dude's got right tall brown zit poppin out the top 'o his haid
Oddly enough, this painting was commissioned in reaction to a 1504 painting entitled "Lady With A Goatse"
Methinks yon unicorn is distressed at the thought of being used as an implement of zit removal. Methinks the lady bears an expression of waiting for us to avert our eyes so she may proceed. Let us now bow our heads in prayer for the safe passage of both zit and young unicorn.
Dude! That's freaky.
Xeni didn't post this? Does Mark paint unicorns btw?
Beautiful. I have not seen this in Raphael books, so don't know if I'm being scammed by some Photoshop trend of the week, but do know that Leonardo has a very similar painting which is sublime (if the link breaks look up "Leonardo ferret"):
http://webzoom.freewebs.com/britishferretclub/LADY%20ERMINE%20LEONARDO%20DA%20VINCI.JPG
"In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce...? The cuckoo clock." - Orson Wells (words added to screenplay of the film The Third Man 1949)
"If you only knew how hard I worked, you wouldn't call me a genius." - Michelangelo
That's a big-ass ferret.
So are people going to be visiting museums in 500 years to see a portrait of Paris and one of her many toy dogs?
Yes I soiled and diminished Boing Boing by using the "P" word.
Sue me. :)
What's with the Joanna Newsom portrait?
Nik, the Italian Renaissance produced a heap of great art because it was used as an instrument of state, so they had big budgets for it.
Lady with a Unicorn is a fairly conventional Renaissance female portrait. That said, Lady with an Ermine was much admired and imitated.
David Carroll, only if they're the subject of a really good painting. We don't remember Madame X for her own merits; we remember her because Sargent painted such a great picture of her.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden: (#11)
Thank you for introducing me to Madame Gautreau and the scandal of her little black dress. I always enjoy reading art history because it gives you a real sense of the time.
The point I was attempting to make was that Raphael Sanzio could be seen as the Sears Portrait Studio of his day. He supervised a workshop of dozens of artists, and his commissioned work hung in peoples homes.
Only much later was his work considered to be art in a more traditional sense. It was always art of course.
Don't get me wrong: Raphael is amazing...
It would also be delicious irony if in 500 years "you know who" was hanging in a gallery, and like the Unicorn lady, not one person on the planet knew her name (or thought she was hot!)....