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The Ten Greatest Portraits
Ever Painted
Ten immortal masterpieces
that tower over all the rest.
9. Raphael Santi or Sanzio, 1483-1520
Baldassar Castiglione
The
Grand Gallerie in the Louvre Museum
in Paris is the length of three
Washington Monuments laid end-to-end—the
longest room in Europe. On my first
visit, I was struck by the fact
that I had walked the entire length
of this gigantic exhibition hall
before I encountered a single portrait
of any real interest. It was Raphael's
Baldassar Castiglione. Perhaps
the first truly great portrait of
the Italian Renaissance, it is magnificent
in design, brilliant in execution,
and vividly portrays a unique human
being at a specific moment in time.
Everything
is right here—the composition
is magnificently simple, the shapes
are decorative and well-related,
the colors are conservative and
elegant. But—handsome as this
is as a piece of graphic design
in two dimensions, Baldassar
Castiglione gives us a highly
believable human being—thoughtful,
vulnerable, rather like people we
know. Above all else, portraiture
is about the human dimension.
Louvre
Museum, Paris
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