Plated

Adolph Menzel
Suits of Armour
1866
watercolor and gouache on paper
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Salvator Rosa
Two Soldiers with Attendant
ca. 1657-58
etching
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Hans Thoma
Young Woman with Dejected Knight
1894
watercolor on paper
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Leonhard Beck
Tournament Opponents Unhorsed
1517
woodcut
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Beyer
Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor
(posthumous portrait in classical garb)
ca. 1770-80
marble
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Philibert Benoît Delarue
Soldiers gathered around a Knight of Malta
1753-54
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Benjamin West
Portrait of George III
1783
oil on canvas
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Francesco Solimena
Prince Joseph Wenzel I von Liechtenstein
1725
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

François Guérin
Portrait of Prince Xavier of Saxony
ca. 1765
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Anonymous Britain Artist after Anthony van Dyck
Portrait of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford
ca. 1635
oil on canvas
National Portrait Gallery, London

Pierre Mignard
Portrait of young Louis XIV, King of France
ca. 1655-60
oil on canvas
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Hyacinthe Rigaud
Prince Joseph Wenzel I von Liechtenstein
1740
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Jean-François de Troy
Louis-Auguste, duc du Maine
(illegitimate son of Louis XIV)
ca. 1705
oil on canvas
Musée d'Île de France, Château de Sceaux

Anthony van Dyck
James, 3rd Marquess of Hamilton
ca. 1640
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Heinrich Göding
Portrait of Elector Moritz of Saxony
ca. 1606
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Frank Eugene
Man in Armour
ca. 1910
photogravure
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

For shadow, as Hogarth knew, is only an indication of form as long as we know where the light comes from.  If we do not know, we have to guess.  Psychologists have found that in the absence of other clues, Western observers have settled for the probability that the light falls from high up and from the left-hand side.  It is the position most convenient for drawing and writing with the right hand, and it therefore applies to most paintings.  . . .  The method of isolation and guessing is not merely a frivolous game.  It reminds us of the tremendous gulf that separates the reading of pictures from the sight of the visible world.  Simply to equate the one with the other, as Ruskin did, in common with so many nineteenth-century critics, is to bar one's way to the understanding of representation.  . . .  Without some initial system, without a first guess to which we can stick unless it is disproved, we could indeed make no "sense" of the milliards of ambiguous stimuli that reach us from our environment.  . . .  It is hardly necessary to stress how immeasurably richer is the information we have at our disposal in this process of trial and error when we move around in the real world, compared with the interpretation of representations.  The philosophers and psychologists from Berkeley's time onward were certainly right when they stressed the importance of touch for our confidence in a solid, permanent world.  But we now know that touch is only one of a whole battery of cross checks at our disposal.  . . .  But all these clues, we may be sure, are subsidiary to the test of movement.  Whenever we do not quite trust our eyes or want additional information, we shift our head slightly and watch the relative change of position.  

– E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: a Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton University Press, 1960)

Casqued

Antonio Tempesta
Augustus
(series, Roman Emperors)
1596
etching
Kupferstichkabinett,
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Louis Millenet
Athena
ca. 1885
enamel plaque
Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Adolph Menzel
Armoured Tomb Statue of Ludwig I
in Bayern Cathedral, Munich
1889
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Nicoletto da Modena
Mars
ca. 1500-1510
engraving
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Marcantonio Raimondi after Raphael
Athena
ca. 1510-20
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Salvator Rosa
Antique Soldier
ca. 1657-58
etching and drypoint
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Adamo Scultori after Giulio Romano
Mars attended by Winged Putto
before 1585
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Giovanni Battista Scultori
after Giulio Romano
Athena
1538
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Giovanni Francesco Penni
Archangel Raphael subduing Demon
ca. 1520
drawing
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

Joseph Heintz the Elder after Paolo Veronese
Galloping Warrior
ca. 1587-89
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Antonio Salamanca
Artemisia
(sister and consort of Mausolus)
ca. 1540-50
etching and engraving
Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich

attributed to Jacques de Gheyn II
Half-Length Study of Warrior
before 1629
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Study of Warrior
before 1666
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Anonymous French Artist
Study of a Soldier
ca. 1600-1650
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Ferdinand Bol
Portrait of a Man in Armour
ca. 1655-57
oil on canvas
National Museum, Warsaw

Johann Wilhelm Meil
Helmet with Plumes
1779
etching
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

The illusions of art presuppose recognition; to repeat the phrase from Philostratus, "No one can understand the painted horse or bull unless he knows what such creatures are like."  The mistake which has led so much theorizing on art into the bog is in thinking that there must be means of representing "appearances" or even "space" as such.  It is our knowledge, or more precisely our guess,  that makes us interpret the small horse or bull in many a picture as a distant horse or bull.  It is not for nothing, therefore, that perspective creates its most compelling illusion where it can rely on certain ingrained expectations and assumptions on the part of the beholder.  The Baroque decorator's illusion of painted ceilings or architecture works so well because those paintings represent what might, after all, be real.  Every care is taken to blur the transition between the solidly built and the flatly painted, and we continue to interpret the one in terms of the other.  It is for similar reasons that Renaissance painters liked to suggest depth through the rendering of tiled pavements.  Assuming as we must that the pavements are flat and the tiles identical units, we are compelled to read their progressive diminution as recession.  But here, as always, the impression of depth is entirely due to our share, our assumption, of which we are rarely aware.  In a similar way, modern poster artists often rely on our expectations of the normal letter form to give us the impression of letters or words arranged in depth or coming toward us with aggressive force.  It is an effect which would be lost on someone who did not know the conventions of lettering.  

– E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: a Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton University Press, 1960)

Emplumed

Jost Amman
Kneeling Drummer
1578
woodcut
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Jérôme David after Claude Vignon
Tamarlane (Timur)
ca. 1640
etching and engraving
Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich

Joseph Krafft
Portrait of a Lady
1823
oil on canvas
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Moritz Michael Daffinger
Portrait Study of Countess Potocka
ca. 1840
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Rembrandt
Self Portrait with Plume
1638
etching
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Jan van Nickelen
Portrait of Prince Carl von Hessen Kassel
1719
oil on canvas
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Antonio Tempesta
Cyrus Major
(illustration to Ariosto's Orlando Furioso)
1597
etching
Kupferstichkabinett,
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Anonymous German Artist
Landsknecht
ca. 1550
woodcut
(excised from printed book)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Hans Rudolf Manuel Deutsch
Landsknecht
1547
woodcut and letterpress
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Jan Gossaert
Armoured Warrior
ca. 1508
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Hendrick ter Brugghen
Reveler
1627
oil on canvas
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Gerrit van Honthorst
Violinist making a Rude Gesture
ca. 1624
oil on canvas
Schloss Weissenstein, Pommersfelden

Jacques Bellange
Melchior
(one of the Three Wise Men)
ca. 1610
etching
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Derby Porcelain Factory
Britannia
ca. 1765
porcelain
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Hans Makart
Viennese Woman Praying
1880
oil on panel
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Anonymous South American Artist
Birds and Flowers
ca. 1650-1700
feathers mounted on woven gut panels,
wooden frame with turned wooden handle
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

The biographer of Velázquez, Palomino, reports that the artist painted with especially long brushes to keep his distance from the canvas and adds that his portraits are unintelligible from close quarters but miraculous when seen from afar. 

The studio talk about the two manners is well summed up by the Venetian painter Boschini.  In his poem of 1660 he contrasts the diligente with the manieroso, foreshadowing the difference between Canaletto and Guardi.  "The work of industry can be achieved by any painter who has patience, love, and a good eye; but to achieve the manner or touch of Paolo, Bassano, Palma, Tintoretto, or Titian – by God, that is something to drive you mad."  

The posthumous preface of one of Boschini's guidebooks enlarges upon the importance which an understanding of the styles of these masters has for the connoisseur and links the idea of the authentic touch with the traditional notion of sprezzatura.  "Even the painters who painted softy, particularly Titian, ended up with some brushstrokes in the highlights and shadows, setting down their work with bravura to remove the impression of effort they had employed on the painting; hence when such brushstrokes cannot be discerned, especially in the heads, the work should be regarded as a copy, for he who imitates the work with much attention will produce a labored thing."

– E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: a Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton University Press, 1960)

Sebald

Sebald Beham
Alexander the Great with Bucephalus
before 1550
engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Sebald Beham
Drummer and Standard-Bearer
1544
engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Sebald Beham
Army on the March - Pikeman and Mounted Officer
ca. 1520
woodcut
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Sebald Beham
Army on the March - Baggage and Followers
ca. 1520
woodcut
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Sebald Beham
Three Soldiers
before 1550
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Sebald Beham after Barthel Beham
Abduction of Helen
before 1550
engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Sebald Beham
Coat of Arms of Kress von Kressenstein
before 1550
woodcut
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Sebald Beham
Drawing Manual - Studies of Heads
1546
woodcuts and letterpress
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Sebald Beham
Drawing Manual - Studies of Heads
1546
woodcuts and letterpress
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Sebald Beham
Allegory - The Impossible
1549
engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Sebald Beham
Ornamental Panel with Tritons
ca. 1530-40
woodcut
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Sebald Beham after Barthel Beham
Virgin and Child with a Parrot
1549
engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Sebald Beham
Death and the Family of Adam and Eve
1530
engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Sebald Beham
Death and Three Women
before 1550
engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Sebald Beham
Death and the Shameless Couple
1529
engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Sebald Beham
The Hour of Death
1522
hand-colored woodcut
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

In the end of the same summer the Athenians sent twenty galleys into Sicily under the command of Laches the son of Melanopus and Charoeadas the son of Euphiletus, for the Syracusians and the Leontines were now warring against each other.  The confederates of the Syracusians were all the Doric cities except the Camarinaeans, which also in the beginning of this war were reckoned in the league of the Lacedaemonians but had not yet aided them in the war.  The confederates of the Leontines were the Chalcidique cities together with Camarina.  And in Italy the Locrians were with the Syracusians; but the Rhegians, according to their consanguinity, took part with the Leontines.  Now the confederates of the Leontines, in respect of their ancient alliance with the Athenians as also for that they were Ionians, obtained of the Athenians to send them galleys, for that the Leontines were deprived by the Syracusians of the use both of the land and sea.  And so the people of Athens sent aid unto them, pretending propinquity but intending both to hinder the transportation of corn from thence into Peloponnesus and also to test the possibility of taking the states of Sicily into their own hands.  These arriving at Rhegium in Italy joined with the confederates and began the war.  And so ended this summer.

The next winter, the sickness fell upon the Athenians again (having indeed never totally left the city, though there was some intermission) and continued above a year after; but the former lasted two years, insomuch as nothing afflicted the Athenians or impaired their strength more than it.  For the number that died of it of men of arms enrolled were no less than four thousand four hundred; and horsemen, three hundred; of the multitude, innumerable.  There happened also at the same time many earthquakes both in Athens and Euboea and also amongst the Boeotians, and in Boeotia chiefly at Orchomenus.

– from The Peloponnesian War as written by Thucydides (5th century BC) and translated by Thomas Hobbes (1628) and edited by David Grene (1959)