Goya & Rembrandt

Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Painted by Goya, this work is titled José Costa y Bonells (died 1870), Called Pepito. This boy, Pepito, was the son of King Ferdinand VII's doctor. I like how Goya uses highlight to emphasize the creases in the child's clothes as well as creates dimension inside his plumed hat. I do think it is odd, however, that the child's face is not as highlighted as his clothes. Perhaps Goya emphasized the clothing's highlights in order to convey the sense of a certain type of material, potentially an expensive one.

Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

This painting by Rembrandt is called Woman with a Pink. The "pink" is a carnation, a symbol of love and marriage. Rembrandt's highlights are very bright, especially the ones present on the woman's jewelry. The shadows he creates are so dark that the figure seems to melt into the background. What I found odd is the highlight surrounding the woman's hands holding the pink; it seems unnatural. The extra light is most likely to highlight the pink as emphasis of its importance (love and marriage), but it seems like the flower and the hands themselves emit their own glowing light that is not natural.

This is In Ictu Oculi by the Spanish painter Juan de Valdés Leal. I thought this was an interesting piece because there is no light source shown in the painting but it is easy to tell that it would be coming from the lower left area. He does use his artistic licence in the lighting of the casket and the globe; they are both well lit though they are relatively far from the light.


This is a still life by the Dutch painter Rachel Ruysch. I find myself drawn to paintings that show a dark place being lit from an interesting angle. This one is also lit from the lower left corner. I think the light is actually very well represented in this painting. It does seem to lack some of the shadows we might expect but other than that it appears to be an accurate representation. I really liked the color in this piece and how she used it to show lighting.

This painting is interesting because it gives a balance between the sunlight and the candlelight while juxtaposing it to the shadows created from the multiple light sources.

This painting is fascinating because the moonlight peeks over the cloud to illuminate the water, which gives a nice balance to the darker shore in the painting.

"The Destruction of the Palace of Armida" is a painting created by french artist Charles-Antoine Coypel in the early 1700s. The focus of the piece is on the angel creature coming down. The light source appears to be in the back. However, most of the people in the piece are lit from the front, implying an additional source in the front, which I found interesting in addition to all of the chaos.


This one is called "A Coastal Landscape with Sailing Ships by Moonlight" by Andreas Achenbach. The moonlight is the clear source of light here. It is contrast with the dark, ominous clouds, which gives either the feeling that danger is always there, or that there is hope amongst the darkness and despair.

Old Masters: Patinir and Wijnen

I decided to go with the painting "Landscape with St. Jerome" by the painter Joachim Patinir. I chose this painting for a few reasons; for one I found the cooler tones just an interesting palette choice, as almost everything in the photo seems to be just tinted slightly bluer than they would normally be. Then the cave in which we see St. Jerome sitting in, is dimly lit, and we are able to see just a hint of him. This creates such a nice effect, as it is definitively something that draws your eye to it, just because of the difference in color to the rest of the landscape.

I also decided to go with a painting attributed to Dominicus van Wijnen, and it is titled "Witchcraft". The thing that I like about this photo is how the sky is partially illuminated by the moon, and that the moon also being blocked by the clouds, thus not illuminating the entire frame. Instead for the main lighting, we have both a fire which is being used to burn, what I can only assume to be, a Witch, and a second flame coming out of a creature's mouth. Overall it's just an energetic scene being lit by two different sources of light.

This painting is called "Cristo deriso" by Trophime Bigot. Here, the only light we can see is coming from the lamp in between the two men, while darkness surrounds them. I like the intensity of the light from the lamp, because it makes you focus on the details on the faces of the two men before anything else. It makes the moment between the two appear more intense.

This painting is called "The Haarlemmermeer on a Cloudy Day, with a Distant View of the Church of Saint Bavo, Haarlem" by Jan Josefsz Goyen. I like how you can see the sunlight come through and reflect on the clouds themselves. You can see the light reflecting off parts of the water, but not on the grass or the people. You can tell it's an overcast day, but you know what the light source is.

This painting, called "Two Views of Dresden by Moonlight" by Johan Christian Clausen Dahl, is centered around the glow of the moon. The lighting casts interesting shadows on the water, and highlights the tree in the top right corner. 

In this painting (Georges de la Tour, "Magdalen with the Smoking Flame") features a woman illuminated by a single bare flame. The light given off by this candle frames the lines and details of the woman's body, and lengthens her bare legs. 

Old Masters Paintings (Briahn Hawkins)

The painting is called Judith Slaying Holofernes by Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, who tends to focus on powerful female figures in her work. Besides the graphic actions themselves, I'm interested in the actions taking place in front of what looks like either a lamp or a candle. This simple light exposes a brutal, gory beheading. In addition to that, you don't even see what the rest of the room looks, so you're even more focused on the action taking place.

This painting titled The Duet was created by Dutch painter Gerrit van Honthorst in the 17th century. According to ArtfixDaily, this painting was confiscated by Nazis during World War II from an art collector and has been auctioned recently in New York. What I enjoy is the color and passion that is illuminated by the candle. It allows us to see the emotion from the woman and the joy of the man as they share the song together. Also, like the first painting, the candle only shows the action that's taking place and not the entire scene.