Two pantings from the getty museum Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Two pantings from the getty museum - Essay Example Both paintings are approximately from the same time period, with about 20 years difference between each other, both are allegorical, and both make an open and manifest reference to fields of knowledge through the humanization of concepts, personifying mentations. But there the similarities end. Van Mieris' diminutive Pictura is an oil-on-copper that displays a frequent simplicity in tandem with a minute attention to detail (see Getty Museum), typical of the Dutch art from the period, as well as the pearlescent finish in general achieved by using copper as a medium. It is a tiny portrait (5" x 3 ") of a young girl (Pictura, the art of painting in human form) who has an unobtrusive aura about her, whether worked in by Van Mieris or inherent to her nature, we will never know. In the crook of her left arm she holds a small figure, a white sculpture of a nude man that looks very Greco-Roman in its workmanship, possibly alluding to the rediscovery of classical antiquity -that is, an idealized vision of Greek and Roman culture- as a major factor for explaining the origin of the Renaissance (see "Classical"). Also in her left hand she holds a palette and some brushes. Her right hand is poised on a necklace from which a large mask pendant hangs.