Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Bust Studies

Eglon van der Neer
Woman drawing a bust-statuette
ca. 1665
oil on panel
Wallace Collection, London

Jan-Baptist Xavery
Miniature bust of Lucretia
1734
ivory
Rijksmuseum

Jean-Antoine Houdon
Bust of a child
1791
plaster
Louvre

"In the heart of the Saint Marcel quarter, where I lived for a long time, I saw many children with charming faces. By the age of twelve or thirteen their eyes full of sweetness had turned calculating and intense, their pleasing little mouths had become oddly contorted, their rounded necks swollen with muscles, their ample cheeks marred by coarse bumps. They'd taken on the physiognomy of the market and the exchange. Driven to anger, insult, combat, cries, and humiliation in their pursuit of money, they'd acquired an air of sordid calculation, impudence, and wrath that would remain with them for the rest of their lives."

 from Notes on Painting (Appendix to the Salon of 1765) by Denis Diderot, translated by John Goodman (Yale University Press, 1995)

Caesar van Everdingen
Still life with bust of Venus
1665
canvas
Mauritshuis, The Hague

Donatello
Bust-portrait of Niccolò da Uzzano 
1430s
polychrome terracotta
Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence

Gianlorenzo Bernini
Bust-portrait of Scipione Borghese
1632
marble
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Francesco Laurana
Bust-portrait of Beatrice of Aragon
1474-75
marble
Frick Collection, New York

All things are doubly fair
If patience fashion them
            And care 
Verse, enamel, marble, gem.

No idle chains endure:
Yet, Muse, to walk aright,
            Lace tight
Thy buskin proud and sure,

Fie on a facile measure,
A shoe where every lout
          At pleasure
Slips his foot in and out!

Sculptor, lay by the clay,
On which thy nerveless finger
          May linger,
Thy thoughts flown far away.

Keep to Carrara rare,
Struggle with Paros cold,
            That hold
The subtle line and fair.

Lest haply nature lose
That proud, that perfect line,
            Make thine
The bronze of Syracuse.

And with a tender dread
Upon the agate's face
            Retrace
Apollo's golden head.

Despise a watery hue
And tints that soon expire.
            With fire
Burn thine enamel true.

Twine, twine in artful wise
The blue-green mermaid's arms,
            Mid charms
Of thousand heraldries.

Show in their triple lobe
Virgin and Child, that hold
            Their globe,
Cross-crowned and aureoled.

 All things return to dust
Save beauties fashioned well.
            The bust
Outlasts the citadel.

Oft doth the plowman's heel,
Breaking an ancient clod,
            Reveal
A Caesar or a god.

The gods, too, die, alas!
But deathless and more strong
            Than brass
Remains the sovereign song.

Chisel and carve and file,
Till thy vague dream imprint
            Its smile
On the unyielding flint.

 ThĂ©ophile Gautier (1811-1872) translated by George Santayana (1863-1952)

Joseph Nollekens
Bust-portrait of Laurence Sterne
1766
marble
National Portrait Gallery, London

Antico
Bust of a youth
ca. 1520
bronze
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Michelangelo
Bust of Brutus
1540
marble
Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence

Andrea del Verrocchio
Bust of young woman
1465-66
marble
Frick Collection, New York

Rombout Verhulst
Bust-portrait of Jacob van Reygersbergh
1671
marble
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Hendrik de Keyser I
Bust-portrait of a man
1606
polychrome terracotta
Rijksmuseum

attributed to Hendrik de Keyser II
Bust-portrait of a man
1636
polychrome terracotta
Rijksmuseum