The most famous portraits

[Santa]

Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678) - Family Concert
Oil on canvas. Around 1638 Antwerp, Belgium. Royal Museum of Fine Arts.

In the work of Jacob Jordaens difficult to determine the line separating the portrait of genre scenes. Family dinners, happy holidays, house concerts - that's his favorite themes Flemish master. Gathering together people linked by ties of kinship and friendship, the artist creates a wonderful group portraits. Details of genre scenes in such films serve to emphasize the unity of all the actors, their enthusiasm for a common cause.
Cheerful Flemings loved dancing, music, singing in chorus. Family concerts were frequent in many homes. At the top of one of the masters paintings, dedicated to this subject, in a carved frame is placed Flemish proverb: "How old are singing, whistling as the young." And here is a visible confirmation. Enthusiastically sing the old, and just as enthusiastically playing musical instruments, unpretentious young people. Only a woman holding a child prefers the role of listener. However, it is no less than the others going through what is happening.

Cornelis de Vos (1586-1651) - Portrait of Abraham Grafeusa
Oil on canvas. 1620 Antwerp, Belgium. Royal Museum of Fine Arts.

Strange impression that portrait. The man in black jacket with a ruff and a white apron, somehow wound around the waist, shows someone precious cups. Abraham Grafeus must have cleaned them, bringing to light - in the crook of the elbow he hangs dishcloth.
An angry expression on his face, a stern, almost insane look with which he pierces the unseen companion, metallic vest, constructed of different-sized kruglyashi - all this makes the viewer question his sanity. Or in the understanding of the artist who dared to present his client in this almost caricatured. Or the customer was just Abraham Grafeusa foe? Maybe people with this portrait just loved a joke? And his descendants of all the portraits of his ancestors loved the most was this, which wipes the eccentric old utensils, wearing apparel, equally absurd, and in war, and on society reception?

Jan Vermeer Delft (1632-1675) - The head of a girl
Oil on canvas. C. 1665 The Hague, Netherlands. Mauritshuis.

This picture of the famous Dutch painter Jan Vermeer is also known as "head girl". This is no accident. The wizard does not set a goal to paint a portrait of the individual. He created a generalized image of a teenage girl who is about to become a young girl. A thin, barely visible bar that separated the only character of Vermeer's carefree childhood. And the curiosity of the child in the large shining eyes mixed with another woman unconscious coquetry.
Vermeer is trying to attract the viewer's attention to the face of the heroine. Only it was interested in creating a work of the artist. Yellow tape head that covers the hair, a large pearl earring, white collar - these are just details that add nothing to the look of the girl. And the master plan was a success: over three-plus centuries of adolescence itself looks at the viewer with this picture.