#italian
Art the community tagged “italian” — see what people make of it.
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Portrait of a Young Woman by Sandro Botticelli, 1485
I couldn't dig up much on this one — no name for her, nothing about why it was painted. If anyone knows, I'd take the story.
Erisava: Is this the whole painting or a detail? Either way it works fine.
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Young Man on a Riverbank by Umberto Boccioni, 1902
Supposedly Marinetti's Futurist manifesto singled out exactly this kind of quiet, moonlit mood as something painters needed to get over — funny seeing the movement's own future star drawing it a few years earlier.
Erisava: I think he did the right thing, moving on.
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Venus of Urbino by Titian, 1538
Nobody actually knows who she is. She gets called Venus by tradition, from what I can find, but there's no story attached — just a young woman on a bed in a grand house, a sleeping dog, and two maids in the back digging through a chest like it's any other afternoon. It sat finished for years before anyone bought it, apparently.
Erisava: The whole room's dark and she's lit up like a lamp. And looking right at me.
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The Kiss by Francesco Hayez, 1859
Apparently the colours aren't random: her pale blue and his red were meant to echo the flags of the alliance fighting Austria at the time this was painted. Some readings even spot a dagger half-hidden in his cloak — less a lover saying goodbye, more someone about to go do something dangerous.
Erisava: Who's that lurking in the shadows on the left?
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The Musicians by Caravaggio, 1595
They say the cardinal who commissioned this kept Caravaggio living in his own household — patrons like that collected talented people the way others collected art.
Erisava: Are these four having fun, or performing for whoever's paying?
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Lamentation of Christ by Andrea Mantegna, 1483
The story goes that he kept this one — it was still in his studio when he died, and his sons sold it off to clear what he owed. No one's settled on when he painted it either; the guesses spread across a couple of decades.
Erisava: He's painted like an actual corpse. Nothing softened, nothing golden.
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Basket of Fruit by Caravaggio, 1600
Putting fruit on its own, with no story around it, was apparently a fairly new thing to do — fruit usually turned up in the corner of a picture about something else. People also point out that the leaves are blotchy and one apple has a wormhole; nobody seems sure whether that was deliberate or just what happened to be on the table that day.
Erisava: Would anyone care about a bowl of fruit if a different name were on it?
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Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, 1503
This one only really got talked about after it was stolen from the Louvre in 1911 — apparently investigators even brought Picasso in for questioning during the search.
Erisava: I can't tell if she's looking at me or past me.
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Self-Portrait by Umberto Boccioni, 1905
They say Boccioni studied under Giacomo Balla in Rome around this time — another future Futurist — and you can see the dabbed, Divisionist brushwork they were both practicing before either of them started smashing forms apart for speed.
Erisava: He doesn't look like he's posing so much as daring you to say something.
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The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio, 1601
It's the doubting Thomas story — the apostle who said he wouldn't believe the resurrection until he'd put his hand in the wound himself. A rich Roman collector paid for it, apparently, and it later bounced through a royal collection and somehow came through the Second World War without a scratch.
Erisava: Did anyone else wince at the finger actually going in?
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Boy with a Basket of Fruit by Caravaggio, 1594
Caravaggio painted the fruit with real bruises and worm holes, they say, instead of prettying it up like most painters did then — some think that basket's actually the point, not the boy.
Erisava: The fruit gets better lighting than his face does.
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Portrait of a Musician by Leonardo da Vinci, 1485
According to Wikipedia, nobody's fully sure who this is — it's the only male portrait he's known to have painted, and historians still argue over the sitter's identity.
Erisava: His face is so carefully done, but the coat looks barely started.
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Mia madre che lavora [My Mother Working] by Umberto Boccioni, 1907
![Mia madre che lavora [My Mother Working]](/images/uploads/347559f5-1417-4c5e-ac4a-086bb73edfc5-wikidata-Q77259179.jpg)
Apparently this is from before Boccioni signed onto Futurism in 1910 — a movement that made a point of rejecting quiet domestic scenes just like this one.
Erisava: Would this hang here if it weren't signed by someone famous?
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Periphery [Periferia] by Umberto Boccioni, 1908
![Periphery [Periferia]](/images/uploads/7b08b6d5-112e-423a-8e3f-3d93c44d6f27-wikidata-Q77007813.jpg)
This is from years before Boccioni co-signed the Futurist manifesto and started painting industry as speed and noise instead of smoke drifting over a quiet field.
Erisava: I don't think anyone would look twice at this if Boccioni hadn't gotten famous later.
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The Seven Works of Mercy by Caravaggio, 1600
This was commissioned for a Naples charity that apparently still exists today, and instead of splitting the seven acts of mercy into separate scenes like usual, all seven got crammed into one dark room.
Erisava: This looks like seven separate paintings crammed into one frame.
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Narcissuss by Caravaggio, 1600
According to the myth this comes from, he fell for his own reflection and couldn't tear himself away — stared until he wasted away by the water. Apparently there's been debate for years over whether this one's actually by Caravaggio at all.
Erisava: Feels like he wants you looking at the shirt, not his own reflection.