Portrait of a Lady is a small oil-on-oak panel executed around 1460 by
the Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden. The composition is
built from underlying geometric shapes that form the lines of the
woman's veil, neckline, face and arms, and by the fall of the light
that illuminates her face and headdress. Van der Weyden was preoccupied
by portraiture towards the end of his life and was highly regarded by
later generations of painters for his penetrating evocations of
character. In this work, the woman's humility and reserved demeanour
are conveyed through her fragile physique, lowered eyes and tightly
grasped fingers. She is slender and depicted according to the Gothic
ideal of elongated features, indicated by her narrow shoulders, tightly
pinned hair, long forehead and the elaborate frame set the headdress.
It is the only known portrait of a woman signed by van der Weyden, yet
the sitter's name is not recorded and he did not title the work.
Although van der Weyden did not adhere to the conventions of
idealisation, he generally sought to flatter his sitters. He depicted
his models in highly fashionable clothing, often with rounded—almost
sculpted—facial features, some of which deviated from natural
representation. He adapted his own aesthetic, and his portraits of
women often bear a striking resemblance to each other. Since 1937, the
painting has been held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington,
D.C. It has been described as "famous among all portraits of women of
all schools".
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_a_Lady_%28van_der_Weyden%29>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1776:
American Revolutionary War: British forces defeated the Continental
Army at the Battle of Trois-Rivières, the last major battle fought on
Quebec soil that was part of the American colonists' invasion of
Quebec.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Trois-Rivi%C3%A8res>
1783:
Iceland's Laki craters began an eight-month eruption, triggering major
famine and massive fluorine poisoning.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laki>
1950:
Thomas Blamey became Australia's first, and currently only, Field
Marshal.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Blamey>
1967:
The Israeli Air Force attacked the U.S. Navy intelligence ship USS
Liberty in international waters, killing 34 and wounding at least 173.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident>
1995:
Danish-Greenlandic programmer Rasmus Lerdorf released the first public
version of the scripting language PHP for producing dynamic web pages.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHP>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
isometric (adj):
1. Of, or exhibiting equality in dimensions.
2. Of, or being a geometric system of three equal axes lying at right
angles to each other.
3. (physiology) Of or involving muscular contraction against
resistance in which the length of the muscle remains the same.
4. (physics, of a thermodynamic process) Taking place at constant
volume as a result of being confined by rigid boundaries
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/isometric>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The scientist has marched in and taken the place of the poet. But one
day somebody will find the solution to the problems of the world and
remember, it will be a poet, not a scientist.
--Frank Lloyd Wright
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frank_Lloyd_Wright>