What is a Tronie?

A tronie is similar to a portrait in the sense that the subject is human and often painted or drawn to depict a specific individual with their unique qualities. However, the similarities end there, as portraits were almost always commissioned by a wealthy patron with very specific outcomes in mind. A successful business man of the Renaissance, for example, might hire a portraitist to immortalize him and simultaneously show off the fact that he was a pretty important man. To do this, the painter might have to include certain things in the painting, like expensive clothing, accessories or furniture. The artist might also be obliged to exaggerate in terms of the patrons physical features and personal demeanor to reach the desired effect that the patron has payed for. A little straightening of the nose, widening of the eyes, smoothing of the skin...

A tronie, from the 17th century Dutch word for "face", was a portrait, not of a famous, wealthy or powerful member of society, rather, often a person, who for whatever reason, has caught the attention and imagination of the artist. Old, young, beautiful, plain, light, dark, happy, sad, tormented... a tronie is a portrait of a real person, whether acting a part or sitting as themselves, captured in a moment that the painter felt worthy of immortalizing.

Many works considered tronies are self-portraits; Rembrandt did many, Johannes Vermeer and Frans Hals as well, self-portraits and tronies of unidentified sitters, and ultimately, untitled portraits.
What is enjoyable in these untitled works, for me, is the fact that there is no story to go with the painting, no gossip or predisposed prejudice or admiration for the subject. When you are admiring a tronie, at least one that is not a well-known artists self-portrait, your imagination is forced to start fresh and becomes the spring-board that propels you toward how you feel when you look at the painting or drawing... the individuality of the subject washes over the the viewer to remind us that beauty is not always beautiful or perfect, sometimes it is ugly, cruel, comical or pitiful. Sometimes beauty is human.

Below are some tronies that I have chose for you to look at... real, human, much more timeless than a Queen or a King or wealthy business man...

The Vermeer 3 stops down is very famous, now referred to as The Girl with the Pearl Earring, a movie has been made based on the book of the same name by Tracey Chevalier, is a novel inspired by the painting and imagined completely from the painting. I think all of these tronies could spark the imagination with little effort, each face telling a unique story to each individual viewer. I think that is what any good art does in the end... it tells a thousand unique stories, a million, and reminds us that we all count, not just those blessed or cursed with fame, money and power.

Jan van de Venne (ca. 1616-1651)

Johannes Vermeer (ca. 1665)

Jan Lievens (1629)

Rembrandt van Rijn (ca. 1606-1609)

Bevin Ann (2012)

A Romance With Freedom

French Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (b.1712 - d. 1778) wrote, "Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains!" Rousseau is often considered to be the god-father of the Romantic Period. The quote above is from his piece, The Social Contract, ca. 1762, and it feels as relevant today as it might have on the eve of the French Revolution. Below, I will look at some Romantic works of art that embody the idea of the war against man's inhumanity to man and the dilemma of "freedom" - is it a state of mind? A state institution? Or, is it just a word?

The Period of Romanticism is a bit of a complicated term, in the sense that it doesn't have much to do with what we now define as "romantic", such as walk a long the beach at sunset, or falling in love. Below is an image from "Romantic" artist Goya. I doubt it would take an Art History genius to deduce, that at the time he painted this work, Goya had something other than frozen yogurt and love on his mind.

This deduction would be pretty spot on. Francisco Goya (b. 1746 - d. 1828) was a Spanish artist who had a chance to experience the glory of the Spanish Monarchy before and during it's downfall, and in 1808, his native country to be violently overthrown by Napoleon, thanks to a traitorous Ferdinand  VII and a gullible, Spanish politician, Godoy. In short, Goya had seen the precariousness of the integrity of man and in the drawing and paintings below he shares it with us. Here is where the romance enters... Goya shares with us how he "feels" and how we, if we might feel when we ponder the actions and consequences of powerful men playing dangerous games with humanity. What one ends up feeling ultimately, is that regardless of your station in society, your role in events as a spectator or participant, we are all accountable for our own actions and perhaps more importantly, our in-actions, in the end.

Francisco Goya
The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters
ca. 1797 - 1799

In Goya's sketch above we see an artist (I think Goya himself) exhausted and passed out at his desk. We are witnessing the imminent demise of his subconsciousness, as the unrelenting creatures of the night descend upon his vulnerable form. Why, we must ask ourselves, is this man so vulnerable? Has he lost the privilege of a decent nights sleep and to whom did he lose this privilege, and how? It begs the question, if reason is in jeopardy is not freedom at risk, even and especially, the ultimate freedom, the freedom of the human mind? Goya has drawn one of the night owls with intensely, blazing eyes, whose gaze is focused directly on us the viewer, as if to say, "You think you see before you a doomed man who has placed himself in this torturous predicament, but... you the viewer are not free from the same potential fate". It feels like a warning.

Francisco Goya

Saturn Devouring His Son

ca. 1819 - 1823

In the piece above, Goya tells the story of Saturn, who has been informed of the prophecy that one of his children will depose him. He attempts to prevent this by devouring any children born to him, immediately following their birth. Goya has painted Saturn here in a way that underlines the absurdity in his attempt to remain in control, and as the story goes, one of his sons, Jupiter, manages to escape the gruesome form of patricide and eventually supplants his father. So all the insanity, was eventually for not. Goya's status as an artist gave him a front and centre seat to the drama of the war and destruction that was played out in Spain, in the early nineteenth century. Men desperately trying to maintain power and control over their country and the people in it, and failing. This painting can be read in many ways, but I like to think Goya was making a statement about the futility of war and man's grotesque drive, to divide and conquer his fellow human beings.

Francisco Goya
The Third of May in Madrid 1808:
The Executions on Principio Hill
ca. 1814

In the painting above Goya gives us a scene intensely realistic, lacking in the heroism typically promoted in historical and military paintings, up to this point in time. Here, Spanish rebels and freedom fighters are being meticulously executed, not dying the noble death of a martyr, but rather the cold death of real human beings. The expressions on their faces are not of acceptance, having made peace with what is about to come at dying a violent death for a noble cause. The faces of these men are filled with fear and and the knowledge of betrayal. They have been betrayed by their fellow man, and the distinct lack of glory here, is disturbing. 

Below is a painting by Eugène Delacroix (b. 1768 - d. 1863) depicting a scene from Byron's play, Sardanapulus. Again, we have a painting that is completely devoid of a hero. Rather than admit defeat and surrender, the Assyrian King decides to take his own life, and everyone and everything he holds dear with him. It is the ultimate scene of narcissistic corruption and destruction. Delacroix shows us a leader who has no regard for anyone or anything other than himself, mirroring the political and social structure in the real world, he seems to be asking the viewer, "Do you believe the men that hold your freedom in their hands, respect you, any more this?" Painted in the wake of the French Revolution, Delacroix reminds us here that corruption is ever present, regardless of who is in power. Did Napoleon not ride to power, glory and ultimate corruption, on the idea of freedom?

Eugène Delacroix
The Death of Sardanapulus
ca. 1827


The painting below is by French artist Théodore Géricault, (b. 1791 - d. 1824). It is a depiction of an actual event that occurred ca. 1815, where the captain of a merchant vessel realized that the ship was going down. There were not enough life-boats for all the people aboard, so the captain had the carpenter crew construct a raft for the 150 people that were not important enough to warrant a seat on a real life-boat. The idea was that the life-boat would tow the raft, but when the captain realized he could make no headway in this manner, he cut the raft and all the people aboard, adrift. Only 15 of the 150 passengers survived. In this painting Gericault reminds the people that the French Revolution had failed, the Monarchy was back in power and corruption was rampant. He does this by choosing a contemporary subject, involving men in power deciding who lives and who dies, asking us the viewers, how do feel about this? In a world where man treats his fellow man with such little regard, can freedom exist? If your neighbour is not free, how can you possibly be free? Perhaps, if there is only some freedom, there is no freedom.

Théodore Géricault
The Raft of Medusa
ca. 1819

The last painting I will look at is by the German artist, Caspar David Friedrich (b. 1774 - d. 1840). We see below a funeral procession, monks in the process of the ritual of burial. As the viewer, we feel the bleak, cold winter, perhaps just before sunset, pressing down on the scene. The monks are passing under what is left of an Abbey, a windowless, crumbling arch, flanked by black, gnarled, leafless oak trees. The moon is in it's cycle, as is everything else in the painting. Life is a cycle. Death is a cycle. The earth and the moon are cycling and we are all a part of it. Although the painting evokes dark and bleak emotions about life, leading ultimately to death, there is hope also, in the lingering light of the setting sun reminding us that spring will come again, too. 

The scene is a metaphorical landscape that brings into question not just freedom of the mind and body, but the soul. Friedrich and his contemporaries of the time were showing the public that it was time to start looking at the human role in the world around them in a new way, not simply as those who obey the powers that be, the Church, the Monarchy, the military and history... that a new definition of our role in the world and the universe, must be discussed. The Romantics were recognizing and displaying the fallibility and the frailty of human kind, and in this process, reevaluating and redefining freedom.  A process that continues to this day.

Bibliography

"Janson's Basic History of Western Art", Eight Edition, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, Pearson      Education, Inc., 2009, pgs. 479, 480,484, 490

Getlein, Mark. 'Gilberts Living With Art, Sixth Edition' New York, New York, McGraw-Hill, 2002,  pgs 83, 133, 134, 489, 490

http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/goyas-the-sleep-of-reason-produces-monsters.html

http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/goya-saturn-devouring-one-of-his-children.html
http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/goyas-third-of-may-1808.html
http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/friedrich-abbey-among-oak-trees.html
http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/the-death-of-sardanapalus.html
http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/gericaults-raft-of-the-medusa1.html
http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/friedrich-abbey-among-oak-trees.html

Poussinistes VS. Rubenistes

The Poussinistes VS the Rubénistes was essentially a dispute among the members of the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, that erupted near the end of the 17th century. The conflict can very simply be described as drawing VS. colour, similar to the debate during the Renaissance in Italy, over disgno and colore.

The Poussinistes took their name from the artist Nicolas Poussin (b. 1594 - d. 1665) and the Rubenistes from the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (b. 1577 - d. 1640). At the time this skirmish at the Academie occurred, both Poussin and Rubens were deceased, yet their influence on the art of painting in France was still quite alive. 

The two opposing groups within the organisation were convinced of the supremacy of one specific element of the craft of painting, over another. The Poussinistes believed that very specific adherence to the rules of drawing were more important than the colour that was later applied. Line and form were their indicators of what produced a strong work of art. Below is an example of Poussin's work Madonna of the Steps, showing his mastery of the skill of drawing and skill in application of linear perspective. Poussin was one of the leading painters of his time, and in the movement now referred to as Rococo, that was then building momentum, despite the fact that Poussin adhered to the more Greek or Roman approach in his subjects often focusing on political, historical philosophy, and the noble. 

Nicolas Poussin
Madonna of the Steps
ca. 1648

The next painting is from the Flemish Master Peter Paul Rubens. I chose this painting, not only because it is appealing to me personally, but because it is an example of Rubens work that really shows his genius in the application of colour. The work is devoid of any hard lines and pulls you in with your heart rather, that your eye. This was the exact point that the Rubenistes were arguing, that colour underlines and enhances our instincts as humans, and we respond to the image with our hearts, not our heads. The Rubenistes promoted the idea that the enjoyment of a work of art was not strictly an intellectual experience to be analyzed, reserved only for the educated elite.  Rather, that promoting the instinctive, human response to what the viewer is experiencing in the colour and light of a subject, is the key to an important painting.

Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of Susanna Lunden
'Le Chapeau de Paille'
ca.1614

Below is a work by Jean-Antoine Watteau (b.1684 - d. 1721) a leader of the Rubenistes, hailing from the Netherlands. Watteau's work did not comply with many of the of the rules imposed by the Academie Francais at the time, and his subject matter was not based in history, religion or other such noble areas, but was often placing humans in dramatic, nostalgic and idyllic settings, playing over and over, the game of love and often, regret. The use of colour in the painting below draws greatly on the influence of Rubens, and I choose this work because it seems as though the gradation of colour and light indicate the linear perspective, despite strong lines being non-existent. This work won Watteau not only a spot at the Academie, but introduced a new classification of painting, called "fetes galantes", meaning, "elegant fetes" or "outdoor entertainment".

Antoine Watteau
'Embarkation for Cythera'
ca. 1717

The next work is one that I also find very appealing, on an instinctive, emotional level, despite the fact that the artist in question was considered to hail from the camp Poussinistes. An Englishman named Joshua Reynolds (b.1723 - d. 1792) and one of the founding members of the  Royal Academy of Arts in London. The work below shows a portrait of a woman, Mrs. Siddon, as the title suggests, who was an actress of the day. The story of the painting and it's reception by the patron is fascinating, and one for another blog, however, I chose this work because it shows Reynold's use and respect for classical influence in style, and the drama of the picture is front and centre, all characteristics of Poussinistes. 

Joshua Reynolds
'Mrs. Siddon's as the Tragic Muse'
ca. 1784

Below is a work by Jacques-Louis David (b. 1748 - d. 1825), another Poussinstes artist from France. The work below not only tells the very dramatic story of the murder of a prominent and noble politician, Marat, a friend of David, but aside from the very serious subject matter, the bleakness of the scene, the very distinct and classical style depicted here is as overwhelming as the story. The form and lines of the piece are so strong and severe. The drama is pursued here by line and form. Yes. There is colour, and it is used effectively, for it is almost morbidly beautiful. But is is the hard lines of the painting that convey the emotion.

Jacques-Louis David
'Death of Marat'
ca. 1793


Which brings us to Jean Honore Fragonard (b. 1732 - d. 1806) who definitely swings comfortably into the realm of the Rubenistes, not just for his brilliant use of colour and departure from the classical style favored by the Poussinistes, but the subject matter is definitively fantastical, lush, evocative, naughty and simultaneously sweet. The use of light in the work below creates an ironic darkness that manages to preside over this highly anecdotal painting. We see a young woman being pushed on a swing by an older man. As she flirtatiously kicks off her shoe we see directly across from her is an angel, miming "shhh". There are secrets to be kept here! At the feet of the old man, is a small, yapping dog, symbolic perhaps of  loyalty, trying to get her attention. This is definitely not a scene of a noble or heroic moment in history. However, life is not always about heros and saving the day! Sometimes we just want to float away in our fantasies and forget that we are in the real world!

Unlike the Pousinnistes and Rubenistes, I cannot pick a side. I like all of the paintings above for different reasons and I feel, instinctively, that both colour and drawing are vitally important in the telling of a story and how it affects the viewer from the canvas.


Bibliography

"Janson's Basic History of Western Art", Eight Edition, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, Pearson    Education, Inc., 2009, pgs. 8, 9, 407, 408, 409, 410, 429, 430, 431

Getlein, Mark. 'Gilberts Living With Art, Sixth Edition' New York, New York, McGraw-Hill, 2002,  pgs. 411, 412, 413, 414