Real-life Emotional Expression in "Lady Guo Guo's Spring Outing"

Tang Dynasty was the golden age of feudal China. Chinese politics, economy, and culture grew unprecedentedly during this period, and fine brushwork figure painting also developed rapidly at the same time. As an important branch of Chinese painting, fine brushwork figure painting has an important and special position and profound connotation in traditional Chinese painting art. The emotional expression in the fine brushwork figure painting also plays a central role in expressing the painter’s intention perception of real life and the pursuit of a yearning life.

Malerei als Augentrug. Alexander Roslins Selbstporträt mit Marie-Suzanne Giroust-Roslin an der Staffelei

This article examines the unique self-portrait of Alexander Roslin and his artist wife, Marie- Suzanne Giroust-Roslin (1767, Stockholm, Nationalmuseum), in which a male painter for once leaves the place at the easel to a painting woman. This complex multi-figure painting not only commemorates the couple’s friendship with the sitter, Henrik Villhelm Peill. Rather, it is conceived as a double image of love and advertisement – especially for her art. Further, with this painting Roslin takes a programmatic stand for his own concept of painting as much as for that of his wife: Criticized by Denis Diderot in 1765 for not painting but – like women at the toilet table – literally applying makeup, in this selfportrait with his painting wife Roslin undertakes a conspicuous narrowing of these (so different) activities. Roslin takes up the reproach of beautiful appearance and deception in order to let this criticism collapse in a second moment in the artistic concept of the artful deception of the eye – in a deceptively real painting, which – unlike women’s makeup – negates all difference between being and appearance. An in-depth analysis of the extraordinarily refined self-portrait of Madame Roslin with the laughing self-portrait of Maurice-Quentin de La Tour supports this interpretation. In a broader perspective this study is understood as a contribution to the investigation into the metaphorization of painting layers, picture surfaces, and forms of color application in pre-modern art and art criticism.

Interpretations of the Old Testament Plot "David’s Victory over the Goliath" in Italian Decorative Painting of XVth Century

Статья посвящена рассмотрению трактовки ветхозаветного сюжета победы Давида над Голиафом (Первая книга Царств) в живописных произведениях художников Италии XV в. Автор сосредоточивает внимание на декоративных композициях повествовательного характера, выполненных Пезеллино, Джованни ди Сер Джованни (по прозвищу Скеджа) и Андреа дель Кастаньо. Живописные образы рассмотрены в контексте культурных тенденций и идеалов эпохи Возрождения, а также в контексте параллельно развивающейся изобразительной традиции представления библейского героя в статуарной пластике. В статье уделено внимание источникам иконографии декоративных росписей - средневековой книжной миниатюре, произведениям декоративно-прикладного искусства Византии, а также текстовым источникам, обусловившим смысловое прочтение образа, в частности Псалтири. В декоративных росписях мастера предпринимают попытки адаптировать сложившиеся в миниатюре иконографические типы к формату многофигурной картины. The essay deals to the interpretations of Old Testament plot “the young David’s victory over Goliath” (First Book of Kingdoms) in Italian domestic paintings of XVth century. The author focuses on narratives compositions, made by Pezellino, Giovanni di Ser Giovanni (Scheggia) and Andrea del Castaño. The pictorial images are considered in the context of cultural tendencies and ideals of the Renaissance, as well as in the context of a parallel developing tradition of representing the biblical hero in the statuary plastic. The article pays attention to the sources of iconography in decorative paintings - medieval book miniatures, works of decorative art of Byzantium, as well as textual sources, that determined semantic reading of the image (in particular, the Psalter). In decorative paintings the iconographic types, established in miniature, were adapted to the format of a larger multi-figure painting.