Portrait of a woman with a fan 1876

Noè Bordignon painted this "Portrait of a Woman with a Fan" using oil on canvas. Notice how the materiality of oil paint lends itself to capturing the sheen of the woman’s satin dress. Oil paint, since the Renaissance, has been the principal medium of European fine art, valued for its versatility and capacity for rendering texture. The key is layering; Bordignon would have built up the image slowly, allowing each layer to dry before applying the next. This lent depth and luminosity to the colours, seen in the background. But look closer, and you'll see the speedy strokes used to render her dress, capturing the mass production of fashionable garments. As industrial manufacturing expanded in the nineteenth century, art began to grapple with the social changes of the period. This portrait celebrates skilled artistry, while capturing the shift towards a society of mass production and consumption.