Male Head 17th century

This is an oil painting called Male Head, and we don't know who made it. It hangs here in the Statens Museum for Kunst. The image presents us with a set of cultural and historical questions. It may remind us of the many paintings of philosophers, prophets or apostles produced in Europe in the 1600s. This was a time when new institutions, like public museums and art academies, were emerging. These bodies often promoted art that served a clear social function by teaching its audiences to recognise ideal forms and model their own behaviour on those forms. To understand the painting, we could look at the archives of art academies, to find out what kinds of exercises students were set. We could also investigate the religious and political uses of imagery. Art history is not just about aesthetics, but about the social conditions that shape artistic production.