Parmigianino's Antea

Parmigianino's Antea

Any visit to the Frick Collection will impress even the most experienced museumgoer. This is because the building housing the Frick Collection is so impressive. It is the former mansion of steel magnate Henry Frick. Beyond the obvious grandeur of the building, however, one finds a sweeping collection of old master paintings. One of my favorite paintings in the permanent collection is Holbein's portrait of Thomas More. Holbein does an amazing job of capturing More's elegant red velvet and fur coat. This is one of those rare experiences in art where the coat actually looks real, rather than painted. In terms of Italian Renaissance art, I was very impressed by Bellini's St. Francis in Ecstasy. It is a sublime painting that perfectly captures the union between the spiritual and the natural.

Currently, the Frick Collection is featuring an exhibition of Parmigianino's painting Antea. This painting is in many ways a mystery of Renaissance art. No one knows for sure whether the woman that the painting portrays was real or imaginary.

Beyond the intrigue posed by the painting, the work itself is indicative of Parmigianino's mastery of the paintbrush. Parmigianino has a painting style that is grand, sweeping, yet also quite graceful. You can tell he was influenced by painters like Raphael, but in a painting like Antea, he manages to restrain himself - he never goes overboard in the presentation of the woman. He manages to render her as a subtle beauty. Her pale skin seems to shimmer in the light, while her elegant golden dress establishes her as a person of nobility and importance. While at first glance it seems to be a posed portrait, it is actually a lot more clever. The woman in the painting has just removed one glove and is apparently in the process of removing another when she is interrupted. In this sense, the painting works almost like a well composed modern photograph.