Beautiful Half Nacked Women

COMPOSITION IN THE PORTRAITS IN MINIATURE

miniaturist technique and composition of Vermell Louis (1814-1890)

CHAPTER 71

For Eloy Martinez pitched

The author drawing miniature portraits to reveal their best kept secrets

this time We discuss the basic compositional schemes used by the illuminators to perform their Pictures. It should become familiar with them to enter the fascinating world of miniatures. Then try to analyze what are the basic composition lines employing the thumbnails to the achievement of his portraits. For the curious or for anyone approaching for the first time an exhibition of miniature portraits you may want to look the characters portrayed in poses quite similar and uniform. This impression may be true for those who make a quick viewing without stopping to analyze the various poses which are adopting the model to the painter in miniature. The contemplation of miniature portrait takes time. Other genres of traditional painting offer greater diversity in the field of composition, the picture instead adheres to the representation of the body and face greater attention to individual expression resides.

Most miniature portraits dispense the funds, since their main interest is focused on highlighting the features of the model, find the resemblance. Anything that could get into the funds of the portrait, whether domestic interior, architectural or landscape could distract the viewer's contemplation of the portrait. The signature on the most obvious miniature portraits for the same reason. Do not forget your private and meaning throughout history. The miniature portrait is created not for public display. Its small size for easy transport creates shaped locket, brooch or pocket case for private use in order to bond, and as a reliquary, is sometimes used to place one's own hair strands depicted in the back of the painting, strengthening the union of physical or sexual intercourse with the soul translated into the expression of the portrait.

We will try to show some significant examples of our collection that might surprise for those uninitiated and curious of the compositional technique used and very well known and executed the portrait in miniature. Then analyze the key compositional Vermell Luís Catalan miniaturist, and thus we can determine that composition was his favorite and which was more at ease. But first, let's start by distinguishing the different types of portrait, depending on the scope display and position of the breast, head and other variations taken:

A. For the position of the bust

short A.1 .- Bust

Where the bottom of the bracket coincides with the top of the sternum and clavicles. The head occupies most of the surface. The chosen format is almost always circular, as seen in the following examples:

short right A.1.1 .- Bust

A.1.2 .-

short bust left

A.2 .- Bust half. Where

bottom of the bracket is at the height of the stomach

A.2.1.Busto

right middle

left middle A.2.2.Busto

A.3.Busto long. Where

bottom of the bracket corresponds to the central and lower belly

long straight A.3.1.Busto

A.3.2.Busto left over

A.3.3.Busto hands over

A.4.Torso and turned his head against
Composition widely used in the eighteenth and Empire era

A.5. Profile head with torso turned
Composition very strained and little used by the illuminators

A.6.Torso head turned in profile and
Composition elegant, used in Spain by Ducker

A.7.Torso front head turned
Composition widely used by illuminators century English XVIII, especially by George Engleheart

B. For the position of the head

Regarding the position of the head and face model, regardless of the position of the torso, short, medium or long, either standing or sitting, we distinguish five variations to be chosen by the portrait as appropriate: profile view, view five-eighths, three-quarter view, Seven-eighths view and front view. Except for the front or face view, each variation has the right or left version respectively.

B.1. View Profile.

defined is the representation where the perimeter or contour of the face, which corresponds to the middle section of the head is cut and shaped on the bottom.

B.1.1.Vista

right profile

left profile

B.1.2.Vista

B.2.Vista five-eighths (5 / 8).

is that defined by an intermediate representation between the three-quarter view and the pure profile. In this position usually is not fixed gaze on the viewer and is diverted to some undetermined point.

B.2.1.Vista 5 / 8 right

B.2.2.Vista 5 / 8 left

B.3. Variant of the profile. Vista

between the position 5 / 8 and net
Composition profile extremely rare and little used by the illuminators.

B.4.Vista three-quarters (3 / 4).

defined is the representation where the eye furthest from the face is tangential to the tear and contour of the nose and the corner opposite tangent to the contour of the face. It is the most common position in the portrait miniature.

right

¾ B.4.1.Vista

left

B.4.2.Vista

B.5.Vista Seven-eighths (7 / 8)

defined is the representation where the eye furthest from the face is equidistant between the contour of the nose and the bottom contour of the face without maintaining point of contact with any of them. Very close to the forward position, but only one ear visible

B.5.1.Vista 7 / 8 right

B.5.2.Vista 7 / 8 left

B.6. Front View

is the representation defined by a face and body which remains in the visual axis and the front face remains. Both ears are visible. It is widely used by illuminators, except to portray children, the factions have not yet been defined, as seen in the examples posted.

C. Other variants

C.1.Acodados

Examples

C.2.De back with head turned
Composition arising from Baroque painting by Guido Reni and Horatio Gentileschi, very used by the English miniaturist nineteenth century

C.3.Varios There

thumbnail portraits where the model minority is represented in other forms themselves Portrait oil painting apparatus. Usually these are copies. For example, people lying, squatting, in an attitude of play, with arms outstretched, in the company of animals, devices or objects of their profession (astronomers, doctors, architects, sculptors, painters, engineers, ..)

Certain

miniaturists resort to certain forms of composition that make them serve as usual. We have seen in other chapters as William Ducker opt for composition A.6 (torso with head turned in profile), the Englishman George Engleheart by A.7 (front torso with head turned), Campana by C.1 (layered) and Vermell by B.4 (viewed 7 / 8.), as discussed below.

The case of Luis VERMELL. TECHNICAL AND COMPOSITIONS USED BY ARTIST

OFFER THE GREATEST ARTIST PORTRAIT GALLERY TO VIEW NOW CATALAN

It is really understandable that Vermell miniature portraits were extremely busy especially during a specific period of his life in the early years of his return from Italy. Portraiture know that competitors had virtually no mid-nineteenth century in Catalonia. His portraits are marvels of naturalistic observation and a really effective technique, which we try to address through a separate pointillism, able to get the volumes and the subtle nuances of flesh tones. Quick execution and could not be less given the high volume of commitments was in those years, had to pay all their interest in achieving physical and psychological traits of their models they portrayed without any concessions to the idealization, ignoring the clothes and ornaments complement the dress. ;

transmitted Vermell sculptural form and surface quality in his portraits . With analytical precision records the brightness of the skin, the folds of wrinkles, fine lines around the eyes, the gaunt dark circles tinted blue or the tiny hairs in the eyebrows. At the same time, tuning your ability to collect time and achieves the look like without the slightest flattery., With minimum resources and outstanding results. Indeed their faces are made with very little pictorial material, unlike the European miniatures of his time giving the impression of being more solidly built, layer by layer, in a decidedly sculptural.

approach a powerful magnifying glass to any of his portraits, observe for example in the face of a stranger 1844 (to the right would) and is built with a soft pointillism made a brush tip, in shades of pink and blue for area recently shaved his beard, perfectly linked. The only clear zones corresponding to the brightness of the skin, lies in the front, or where there is situated the fold that forms the cheek with his upper lip, the tear, the eyebrows and the tip protruding from the flat nose, where the ivory remains in reserve or not coated with layers of color, using the natural color of the bracket itself.

The hair is done by applying a layer of gouache color to black and then using a scraper with a very sharp metal tip, the " gratte " indispensable part of the workshop of miniaturist, delete here and there with fine color scraped mass to give the illusion of flowing hair subject to the play of light. The model double chin is also subject to this scaling. This technique also can be observed in the thick hair of the portrait of Ramon Llobet of 1844 (fig.165). This creates a fine quality finish locked. Are structural formulas markedly simplified implementation that Vermell learned in his years in Italy where he trained as a miniaturist and direct contact with the miniaturist Barcelona Sebastian Gallo, partner in the seminar and the same generation, before settling in Italy to pursue his career Church and drop the thumbnail.

Against a background of relatively thin white carnation pink, Vermell start achieving volume and chiaroscuro of the facial features of the model with the analytical precision of all soft structure dotted on small atoms or round spots of brownish water color and very pale purple, defining the shadow areas of the face. Brush strokes to hit, keeping the vertical position of the shank of the instrument, applied wet on wet, marking and booking with elongated strokes to get the shape of the nose, the curved line of the eyelashes, the wrinkle of the upper eyelids the corners of the lips and chin line to mark on chin.

Vermell

Where is revealed as more skilled is the contours of the eyes and eyebrows, but see the portrait of Pere Isern made towards the year 1850 where a dense network of fine wrinkles on the lower eyelids look secure power of this industrial Catalan. Although brown lines are defined by similar, these are made with much more care in first-portraits, those made during his first trip through the villages of the coast, where he was known and appreciated their models by the privileged classes of the Catalan bourgeoisie and before the emergence and dissemination of the daguerreotype portrait machine that inevitably lead to the downfall and disappearance of small hand-portraits as a manifestation of the links affective. Vermell special attention to the whites of the eyes, with touches of blue, gray and hot pink near the tear. The eye shine stands prominently in the upper part of the pupil. In contrast, simplicity reigns in this picture, where only blue light tonal gradations are added to the whites of the eyes, a tiny point lead white applied to the left of the pupil emphasizes the brightness, and eyebrows finely drawn with separate lines speed and skill painted wet on wet, with precise execution and remarkable control in the placement of the soft and warm points to achieve the intended manner. Same technique used to define the lips, another Vermell care with the eyes: a little pink strokes applied with a simple horizontal dark line marking the center, fused with great care. The face of a stranger held in Tarragona in 1849, has a more grayish hue as the base color of the carnation.

Vermell begins base the choice of the tone of the flesh, for it has a range on his palette, ranging from the softest pink to darker Mediterranean skin types, which immediately is added to the ivory surface defining facial features, often through separate lines of darker pigment. The exquisite master boasts that loose, spontaneous, but always safe in the placement and distribution of fine stippling, allows Vermell give life to the portrait with an extraordinary economy of means. The very definition of sculpture that in most of his portraits, the same ability to describe the facial features, from the definition of the grooves of the forehead, the wrinkles surrounding the eyes, highlights in his eyes and stand and extreme tip of the nose. But the ears of their models are not subject to the same description. The structure the ear cartilage is outlined, reduced to mere spots but with a correct interpretation of their appearance. As mentioned earlier, which appears more comfortable in front of their models Vermell is when portraying the elderly, the elderly when you get the greatest visual and emotional dimensions.

goodness achieved in the face of an elder in 1844 (fig.166), the crafty and suspicious expression of the portrait done in the same year, another elder, corresponding to some of the many types that portrays smoothly and seemingly easy Vermell. Your funds are always monochrome without graduation, in green, bluish or brownish gray, no concession to the scenery and less on the landscape. Only female portrait executed in early Tarrassa graduate acquires a green background that helps define the volumes. Vermell normally does not use these procedures and their models literally sinking into the dark background, with the loss of their boundary line, emphasizing the timeless, ghostly character that sometimes appears to us their models: they and their dark Levites them with his clothes also somber tones. Any note of cheerful color is excluded. Any stridency. However Vermell enhances excellence of its models despite its dark and provincial costumes, imprinting an air of quiet dignity but not excessively high or no pride. This is another of the constants in his art to portray, bring the nobility with which invests the simple appearance model and free of class pride, rather self-portrait of the great bourgeois intended for display in the halls of their homes.

Of his portraits seen a few meters, only perceive visually inverted white triangle on their fronts or flesh color of their faces and necks naked in the If their wives. Vermell never use funds and fewer graduates of landscapes or architecture would provide funds for their portraits. Instead her partner, Sebastian Gallés if graduates draw on the funds and the display of the sets after its models, such as the cavalry colonel sitting at a table where you just place your feathered cocked hat, sword in hand and gilded frame a picture hanging on the wall, partially covered by a red velvet curtain dropped and the old middle by smoke from the old collection Renart. Juan de Parada, another excellent English miniaturist before he went to Bordeaux where he finally developed his career as a photographer, make use of animated backgrounds, like the portrait of unknown woman in our collection, where it is displayed after an Elizabethan table clock protected by a bell jar (fig.148).

His portraits sensitive and beautifully crafted are almost always small in size where the faces of their models never exceed 18 mm high, with the usual measure of between 12 and 18 mm. Really small, even for a miniaturist where the average height is 20 or 25 mm. It will be another feature of his work known. In Vermell, simultaneously the work of miniaturist painter with a sculptor and stone carver, is easy to imagine the state of his calloused hands, strong joints and thick fingers characteristic of these professional chisel and hammer, in principle, not very suitable or compatible for the exercise of delicate miniature. However, the qualities of most of his portraits is undeniable, and the processing and execution are remarkably strong and convincing in the construction of its forms. When Vermell rarely extends its format and is beyond the bust, entering the composition of the arms of the model, usually appear disjointed and disproportionate, as we see in the delightful double portrait of the blind musician Jaume Isern Colomer and his son Carlos, also blind from birth, held in Mataró in 1858 and the portrait of Teresa Vilanova Roselló keeping the Museum of Decorative Arts in Barcelona. Vermell really seems only interested in the representation of the face and which is more safe and effective.

is true that the quality of his portraits is not always the same, even some of them are mediocre, the product of speed, often with that the running. If within a year had an average if we are to believe their reports, more than 100 portraits, representing a weekly average approximately two to three pictures per week, can not think that all reach the same artistic level. His production was very important, few European miniaturist, certainly none that reached national productivity. Only in 1858 paint 136 portraits, done really unusual in our country. We found, however, some of the best pictures come out of his hand realistic aesthetic, as is the portrayal of Raimunda Vila, mother of the choirmaster of the Cathedral of Tarragona, Raimon Sans and Vila, conducted in 1851, just one of the most productive years of his career, which reached 117 Pictures from the Catalan towns of Granollers, Torello, Tarragona, Reus, Valls and Montblanc.

Through portraits available to the library and we could know or have access, we can draw some conclusions regarding the composition of portraits Vermell, part of which we listed as characteristics of his art. Among the compositional schemes that we rated, Vermell will mainly choose the position or view of seven-eighths, which is corresponding to the view between the three-quarter frontal and pure. See, among other examples, the portrait of Antonia Civit Miró (fig.171) or the portrait of Teresa Folcra (fig.163). Vermell only made three-quarter view of his early portraits, focusing on the years 1842 and 1843 on his return from Italy. See portraits taken in Terrassa 1843 (fig160 and fig.161)

there instead

another position close to the front view but without it, between seven-eighths and the front, which Vermell know use with great dexterity and skill. The case of small portrait of an unknown man with mustache and goatee, 1846. In sta position, although the frontal line, displays only one ear. Normally the view front is very appealed by both Vermell as other illuminators. Is the one that presents more difficulty to highlight facial features, and therefore achieve similar as one of the most defining features of the adult, the nose is undefined in the front view. That is why children in portraits, where the nose has not developed its final form, is more common front view. See examples presented here (Section B.6. Front). Without doubt, Vermell shows a preference for the position of the head in 7 / 8, putting his characters, preferably older people in positions close to the front, sitting with a large empty enclosure above their heads, as can be seen in the magnificent realistic portrait of the Reverend Mother. Don Raimon Sans and Vila, "Mestre cappella and organist of the Cathedral of Tarragona, held during the artist's stay in this city in the spring of 1851.

Thumbnail Luis Busquets Vermell and
Portrait of Raimunda Vila. Signed in Tarragona in 1851
Watercolor and gouache on paper. 143x115 mm
Spears Collection Martínez-de las Heras

Vermell head used to focus the model. In some cases, the center of the picture horizontally in line with the pupil of the eye close. See the portrait of Ramon Llobet (fig.165) or the elder's 1844 (fig.166), but most of his portraits the center fell between the two eyes, corresponding to the bridge of his nose. In his portraits depending on their focus, we can distinguish small bust portrait of where the bottom of the bracket reaches the area of \u200b\u200bthe diaphragm or lower area of \u200b\u200bthe sternum. If the format is ovoid, short minor axis just boot up to the chin. See the portrait of Ramon Llobet (fig.165) or male portrait done in Tarrassa in 1843 (fig.161). The horizontal line of the eyes is located at ¼ height of vertical axis. There is another small bust position much smaller but unusual Vermell where the bottom of the bracket coincides with the top of the sternum.

Fig.165

Fig.166

Fig.161

is the most commonly used for miniatures inserted in the clips where the head makes its greatest extent, 1 / 3 of its total area and only the knotted neck tie and start of pleated shirt front is visible. Bustos Media, where the bottom of the bracket is at the height of the stomach. See male portrait Tarragona 1849 (fig.169) or the portrait of old unknown 1844 (fig.166). Bust length, where the bottom of the bracket corresponds to the central area of \u200b\u200bthe belly. It is the most used by Vermell for portraits of women. See Teresa Folcra portrait, done in 1844 (fig.163) Civit Antonia's portrait done in Reus in 1851 (fig.170) or the portrait of Bernardina Sama and Urgellés held in Vilanova i la Geltrú in 1846 (fig. 228).