Word: 15th
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With a few exceptions (Roman busts, Fayumic coffin likenesses), portraiture in art's long span is quite a new--well, newish--form. It really gets under way in 15th century Italy. It came with problems, though. Portraiture as we know it is the art of making recognizable likenesses of individuals. But not all Renaissance portraits are about verisimilitude, and even when they seem to be, their truth can't be tested because usually there are no other images of the same person to test it against...
...doth the Bodie make," wrote the poet Spenser in 1596--may be great for the figure and complexion when court painters like Botticelli and writers like Marsilio Ficino or Angelo Poliziano are watching, but it's not so good for documentary truth. As faithful records of human appearance, these 15th and 16th century portraits of women are unreliable. But they are also dream images, illustrating a semiphilosophic proposition that we have altogether abandoned today: the idea that great beauty implies lofty virtue. Tell that to Hollywood and the model agencies...
...display in all her finery, in scarlet velvet or cloth of gold, in brocade and pearls--an icon of marital success and faithfulness. (The catalog has an excellent essay by Roberta Landini and Mary Bulgarella on the arcane intricacies of status and ladies' fashion in 15th century Florence.) Her existence as a silhouette, an untouchable presence--or rather, apparition--reinforces the idea of virtue. So does the purity of line required by profile...
Historians today have thrown out one of the more optimistic ideas set forth in 1860 by Jacob Burckhardt's pioneering study of the Italian Renaissance, that in the 15th century women began to gain equality with men, acquiring a new social influence as individuals in their own right. The portraits in this show neither confirm nor deny this idea. Although they do show women getting more spectacular, the act of wearing jewels that still belong to their husbands doesn't mean independence...
...goal was Corriero’s ECAC-leading 15th of the season. Ingram was credited with her 13th assist...