Copyright: Public domain
Curator: There's a kind of quiet beauty in this pastel portrait. Editor: He looks like a ghost. All silvery, powdery tones... delicate to the point of disintegration. Who is this, shrouded in subtle hues? Curator: This is Sidney Beauclerk, a member of the English aristocracy, captured in 1723 by the Venetian artist Rosalba Carriera. A pastel portrait such as this really was quite the fashionable thing to commission amongst the chattering classes. Editor: Oh, Rosalba! She revolutionized portraiture, in pastel, no less. Consider the textures – the painstaking layering to create lace so fine you feel you could touch it. Then look at the wig. Every curl a distinct stroke! Think of the labor... it's the material reality that strikes me! The production of beauty, always a fascinating project, requiring tools and training! Curator: And a sitter willing to undergo all of that powdered artistry. Beyond the visible technique, I can’t help but be drawn into the subject’s wistful gaze; a suggestion of longing hangs in the air, as soft and delicate as the pastels themselves. Don't you feel as though you're seeing a whole world of inner turbulence somehow hinted at on his face? It makes him seem profoundly sympathetic somehow, not merely beautiful. Editor: Sympathetic perhaps because, ultimately, portraits such as these served to burnish social and class boundaries! What do we truly see in these types of portraits other than a self-fashioned world, the ultimate display of wealth that relies on materials gathered globally: the pastels from France, the paper, the wig? To think he might look pensive is fine but perhaps it is really the result of standing still and sweating under all the heavy artifice he must carry for hours while on display for Carriera's tools... Curator: Still, his pale features seem touched by something profound, whether existential boredom or real melancholia... Editor: Or indigestion after a lavish feast. Look past the gilded frame and try to remember the person who really posed... Maybe they weren't melancholy but simply weary of being seen and judged. Curator: So, despite it all, Sidney's aura still lingers across the centuries... Editor: Indeed! and to ponder what material costs allowed his 'aura' to shine on! A good point for discussion and departure from any show or collection indeed.
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