Andrea Solari, also known as Antonio “Solari,” was a renaissance painter who captured expressions such as sadness, despair, and vengeance by painting contrast between light and dark and gives illusion of depth. Expressions of the faces in his painting are a huge part on how he tries to capture emotion of a whirlpool of feelings towards curtain events such as Jesus death. The renaissance period had a huge impact on how image was perceived and Solari did a wonderful job of capturing the moment. The sadness and mourning of Jesus death was a huge eventual influential impact domino effect, in all religions (which were a majority of the population at the time).
The beheading of John the Baptist was also a huge event that impacted many lives in the renaissance period. The story is gruesome and was captured very well by using the value scale and capturing depth and dark colors to capture the mood. This head on the plate was one of the first that then became a trend to do reversions that came close but, never replaced the horrific impact of emotions such as an actual event that effected so many lives. They say that although this painting is supposed to be the head of John the Baptist, it is actually the face of Solari that was used.
Andrea Solari was a great painter of the renaissance period that contributed to the art work through expressional emotional art. Solari was not afraid to show emotion and felt that it was very human to expect and deal with emotions (one way being in art) to release deep pent down feelings. I appreciate the value and contrast used in these paintings along with the choice of oil paint.
painting 202 