Showing posts with label heads. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heads. Show all posts

Sunday, January 25, 2026

Heads (Prominent)

Irving Penn
Ingmar Bergman, Stockholm
1964
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Guido Reni
Christ crowned with Thorns
ca. 1630
oil on panel
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Peter Staronosov
Portrait of Stalin
1933
wood engraving
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Emil Nolde
Head of a Prophet
ca. 1931
watercolor on paper
Kurpfälzisches Museum, Heidelberg

Alexandre Falguière
Self Portrait
ca. 1865-70
oil on canvas
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse

Thomas Frye
Self Portrait
1760
mezzotint
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Filippo Mazzola
Christ carrying the Cross
ca. 1500-1505
tempera on panel
Galleria Nazionale di Parma

Jusepe de Ribera
Ecce Homo
1644
oil on canvas
Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki

Giambattista Tiepolo
Head of Magus
ca. 1750-55
oil on canvas
Národní Galerie, Prague

Rembrandt van Rijn
Self Portrait
ca. 1631
etching
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Ulf Nilsen
Large Head
1979
oil on canvas
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

Janus Lutma the Younger
Self Portrait
1681
etching
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Filippino Lippi
Head of a Man
ca. 1480
drawing
Musée Condé, Chantilly

Käthe Kollwitz
Head of a Woman
ca. 1905
etching and aquatint
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Adolph Menzel
Lady with Mourning Veil
1892
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Jacques-Raymond Brascassat
Head of a Roman Woman
1828
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Hermes, who dwellest in this wave-beaten rock-cave that gives good footing to fisher gulls, accept this fragment of the great seine worn by the sea and scraped often by the rough beach; this little purse-seine, the round weel that entraps fishes, the float whose task it is to mark where the weels are concealed, and the long cane rod, the child of the marsh, with its horse-hair line, not unfurnished with hooks, wound round it.

Heliodorus dedicates to the Syrian Goddess in the porch of this temple his net worn out in vain. It is untainted by any catch of fish, but he hauled out plenty of sea-weed in it on the spacious beach of the anchorage. 

Old Cinyras, weary of long fishing, dedicates to the Nymphs this worn sweep-net; for no longer could his trembling hand cast it freely to open in an enfolding circle. If the gift is but a small one, it is not his fault, ye Nymphs, for this was all Cinyras had to live on.

Baeto the fisherman, having reached trembling old age, offers thee, Hermes, these gifts, his pliant rods, his oar, whip of his boat, his curved, pointed hooks, his encompassing circular net weighted with lead, the floats that testify to where the weels lie in the sea, a pair of well-woven creels, this stone, the mother of fire, and his anchor, the stay of his unstable boat. 

Old Amyntichus, his toil on the deep over, bound his lead-weighted net round his fishing spear, and to Poseidon and the salt sea wave said, shedding tears, "Thou knowest, Lord, that I am weary with toil – and now in my evil old age wasting Poverty, from whom there is no release, is in her youthful prime. Feed the old man while he yet breathes, but from the land as he wishes, thou who art Lord over both land and sea."  

– from Book VI (Dedicatory Epigrams) of the Greek Anthology, edited and translated by W.H. Paton (1916)

Saturday, January 24, 2026

Heads (Emphatic)

Marc Arcis
Portrait of Louis XIV
1674
terracotta
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse

Ferdinand Hodler
Portrait of Valentine Godé-Darel
1912
oil on paper
Leopold Museum, Vienna

Johanne Sätermyrmoen
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1955-60
oil on canvas
Anno Museum, Hamar, Norway

Jakob Matthias Schmutzer
Head of Young Man
ca. 1770-80
drawing
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Anonymous Austrian Artist
Portrait Study of a Man
ca. 1775-85
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Jean-Baptiste Marc Bourgery
Facial Nerves
1831
lithograph (book illustration)
Universitätsbibliothek, Heidelberg

Lovis Corinth
Portrait of Georg Brandes
1925
oil on canvas
Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp

Anonymous French Artist
Young Woman with Turban
17th century
oil on canvas
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Narbonne

Georges Méliès
Portrait of a Man
1883
oil on canvas
Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne

Bartolomeo Montagna
Christ at the Column
ca. 1495-1500
oil on panel
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Curt Querner
Self Portrait
1930
oil on canvas
Galerie Neue Meister (Albertinum), Dresden

Frans Floris
Captain of the Fencing Guild, Antwerp
ca. 1553-55
oil on panel
(study for altarpiece)
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Yngve Baum
Untitled
(from series Lofoten)
1965
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Félix Auvray
Woman in a Swoon
ca. 1831
drawing
(study for painting, The Last Days of Pompeii)
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes

Ludger tom Ring the Younger
Portrait of a Man
1566
oil on panel
Landesmuseum Hannover

Egon Schiele
Lecture on Shaw and Shakespeare by Dr Egon Friedell
1910
lithograph (poster)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

"[John] Ruskin shared with [William Holman] Hunt a commitment to particular truths over general truths, a recognition that noble and inferior elements were mingled in nature, and a belief that beauty could be discovered in the unexpected and the unconventional.  For Ruskin, such beauty was more valuable and stirring than conventional beauty because it was the result of the union of careful observation with an equally attentive imagination.  In Ruskin's concept of Vital Beauty, expression dominates form and is the means by which spirit and intellect make a face truly beautiful." 

"According to [Charles] Bell, emotional expression possesses a power to transform human facial features and thereby redefines the beautiful: 'A countenance which, in ordinary conditions has nothing remarkable, may become beautiful in expression. It is expression which raises affections, which dwells pleasantly or painfully on the memory. It is the evanescent expression, more than the permanent form, which is painfully dear.' Bell's emphasis on the fleeting nature of expression rather than the permanent form of the head or facial features attaches symbolic importance to individual expressions, which reflect the emotional life."

– from an article, Expression over Beauty, by Julie F. Codell, published in Victorian Studies (1986)

Friday, January 23, 2026

Têtes d'expression

Pierre-Claude-François Delorme
Tête d'expression
ca. 1820
oil on canvas
Musée Saint-Loup, Troyes

Francesco Cairo
St Catherine of Siena with Stigmata
ca. 1650-53
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Anonymous French Artist after Anthony van Dyck
Study Head of Monk
17th century
oil on canvas
Musée Ingres Bourdelle, Montauban

Marc Arcis
Self Portrait
ca. 1710
terracotta
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse

François-Apollin Boucton after Anne-Louis Girodet
Athéna casquée
1847
drawing
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Gerhard von Kügelgen
Portrait of painter Caspar David Friedrich
ca. 1808
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Josef Steiner
Linden Cabaret - Claire Waldoff
1912
lithograph (poster)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Rufino Tamayo
Mask
1964
lithograph
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Andy Warhol
Marilyn
1967
screenprint
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Ole Jørgen Ness
Portrait
1998
oil on canvas
Stortingets Kunstsamling, Oslo

Henri Martin
Self Portrait as St John the Baptist
1883
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Carcassonne

Jan Jordens
Portrait of a Young Woman
1932
watercolor on paper
Groninger Museum, Netherlands

Jérôme David after Claude Vignon
Godfrey of Bouillon
ca. 1640
etching and engraving
Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich

Willem Jansz Blaeu after Albrecht Dürer
Portrait of Ulrich Varnbüler
1522
chiaroscuro woodcut
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Pietro Aquila
Head of Horse
before 1692
etching
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Hannaleena Heiska
Rachel #3 (Blade Runner)
2012
oil on panel
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

"Lorsque la tête est bien disposée, bien rendue, elle encourage infiniment l'artiste à terminer dans le même goût le reste de la figure.  Lors donc, Messieurs, que votre ensemble sera fixé dans l'élégantes proportions, terminées le plus que vous pourrez la tête de votre académie, donnez-leur une expression fine et spirituelle, moins suivant l'exact resemblance du modèle que suivant l'indication judicieusement saisie de la nature en suivant le caractère que vous voulez exprimer.  Que des cheveux éparpillés avec art concourent à lui donner l'âme et la vivacité dont il ne faut jamais manquer de l'anoblir.  C'est elle qui au premier aspect décide le jugement que le connaisseur prononce sur la figure.  Il est rare en effet que la beauté de la tête n'entraîne pas le beau de toutes les parties qui en dépendent et qu'elle ne soit pas la portion d'une très belle académie."

– Michel-François Dandré-Bardon addressing students of the French Academy in 1768

Wednesday, April 23, 2025

Obscure Expressions

Alberto Giacometti
Isaku Yanaihara
1956
oil on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago


Naum Gabo
Study of Head
ca. 1917-18
drawing
Dallas Museum of-Art

Bill Armstrong
George Washington
2013
C-print
New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut

Lester Johnson
Broadway Street Scene
1962
oil on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Jean Dubuffet
Portrait du soldat Lucien Geominne
1950
oil paint, pebbles and sand on panel
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Lotte Stam-Beese
Self Portrait with Bauhaus Group
ca. 1926-28
gelatin silver print (double exposure)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Richard Hamilton
Ghosts of Ufa
1994
lithograph
Tate Modern, London

Sybil Craig
Medieval Woman
ca. 1935
color linocut
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Victor Pasmore
La Toilette
ca. 1946
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Thomas La Farge
Portrait Study
ca. 1931
watercolor on paper
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

John Hoppner
Sleeping Boy
before 1810
drawing
British Museum

Manuel Mathieu
Portrait
2019
acrylic on canvas
Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec

Oscar de Wit
Faces of Multatuli I
ca. 1979-82
etching and aquatint
Centraal Museum, Utrecht

Marina Abramovic
Light Side / Dark Side
2006
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Reynaldo Rivera
Untitled
1986
gelatin silver print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Anonymous Swedish Designer
Magritte as Photographer and Film-Maker
1982
offset-lithograph (poster)
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

David Lance Goines
McManis, Faulkner & Morgan
Twenty-Fifth Anniversary

1996
offset-lithograph (poster)
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Weegee
Charles Sodokoff and Arthur Webber use their Top-Hats to hide their Faces
1942
gelatin silver print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

from Dream (Escape from the Sculpture Museum) and Waking

Softening the marbles, day
Is dawning, which two elms vein. 
Presently, slow as crochet,
White veils grow across the scene.
Now that my life has lost its way
I watch for it, through a cold pane

Out past all this eloquence
Inside: look, gesture, flowing raiment
Done in porphyry or jasper whence
One white arm, for a long moment
Raised to strike, relents
(Not to spoil one's enjoyment)

Back into stone, back into being
Hard, handsome to the fingertips,
With eyes that bulge unseeing
To call down an immaculate eclipse
Upon the world. It began snowing
Because of the statues, perhaps. 

Or because for a long time now
I have wanted to be more natural
Than they, to issue forth anew
In a profusion inimitable
As it is chaste and quickly through.
White void, my heart grows full

With all you have undone!
Starwise, from coldest heights, a gong
Of silence strikes end of an eon,
Reverberates keen and strong
Until a far veil lifts.   . . .   

– James Merrill (1959)