 Do you think the Captain of the Infantry, Marching Left could be a self portrait? Compare it to this self portrait of Goltzius, painted three years later. Self-PortraitHendrick Goltzius 1590-92 Dutch, 1558-1617 Black, red, and white chalk, white body color and brush with various shades of watercolor Nationalmuseum, Stockholm Enlarge |
Hendrik Goltzius was a Dutch artist who fits into a style of High Renaissance art called Mannerism. The style emphasizes the art in an artificial rather than natural way of representing figures. For example, Goltzius's
Captain of the Infantry has a head that seems to belong to another, smaller body, with impossibly tiny feet. Mannerists also represented space in a way that was different from other Renaissance artists. The boundaries of the frame around Mannerists' pictures are ignored in
Captain of the Infantry where the Captain's staff cuts across the picture horizontally and extends right out of the frame on both sides. Mannerist artists exaggerated the features of their subjects, often creating twisted and elongated figures in elaborate and dramatic colors.
