Role of Light in Women Portraiture (Free Essay Example)

Light is crucial within women portraiture, as artists exploit it to divulge how the viewer should see the female sitter. Whilst Bronzino and Rembrandt are able to create their own light source within their paintings, Verrocchio captures light through his refinement of depth in his sculpture.Both Verrocchio and Bronzino demonstrate their versatility of modelling and brushwork through the smoothness of the sitter’s skin in contrast to the textures of the hair and garment fabric, using light to emphasise this control. In comparison, Rembrandt focuses on detailed brush strokes to draw the viewer's attention to the smallest details. In composition, Verrocchio depicts his sitter in a frontal pose gazing to the viewer’s left, alternately, Bronzino seats Lucrezia centrality in a ¾ pose, looking directly at the viewer. Rembrandt’s sitter is in a  ¾ pose, situated in the lower left, with a distracted gaze looking to the right. Each artist uses directional lighting notably highlighting the sitter, emphasising the posing in relation to the ideals of women during each time period. Additionally, the women are framed within their portrait, drawing attention back to their face. Verrocchio’s is minimal, using only the young woman's curled hair, and Rembrandt similarly uses the woman’s clothes and headwear to frame her, the bleak background forcing her into the foreground. Bronzino however, creates a frame with the dark archway and columns, subsequently pushing Lucrezia into the foreground. Rembrandt and Bronzino utilise the framing, contrasting the brightened sitter with the darkened background. Bronzino though stands alone with a filled and cramped composition.  Lucrezia’s elongated neck, with overly rounded and slumped shoulders seemingly move her head into the top third of the composition whilst her body remains within the lower two thirds. Although Verrocchio is unable to use colour, the cool marble is polished to such extent that the directional light glides over her unblemished skin, highlighting her youthfulness, no indications of age. Similar to Verrocchio, Bronzino constructs a cool colour palette; Lucrezia’s porcelain skin contrasting the crimson red dress with deepened purple sleeves, though her hair is a warm-tinted golden shade. Overall, the coolness combined with the direct lighting gives the portrait an artificial feel. Alternatively, Rembrandt uses a limited colour palette, containing hues heavy with black and grey. Her face bathed in light highlights the redness to her cheeks and eyes, as well as the embroidered gold within the hood, and white lace collar, a break from the sombre colour scheme. Unmentioned is depth created by lighting. In Verrocchio’s portrait, the light snakes in and around her hair, showing the intricacy of the curls as it does the creases and decals of her dress, emphasising the three dimensionality. Bronzino and Rembrandt both craft extraordinary texture to the fabrics in their respective portraits; directional light highlighting the ruffles and pleats of Lucrezia’s dress, with the same lighting rendering the fine velvet and the animal fur to such an extent that the viewer could touch the fabric itself in both portraits. Both artists also use chiaroscuro to further bring focus on the sitter, contrasting the sitter's pallor to the dark background.