User talk:Melisa103/sandbox/Lucretia (Rembrandt, 1666)

The medium of this painting is oil on canvas it was created by Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn in the year 1966. It depict a myth about a women name Lucretia who lived during the ancient Roman era, she committed suicide to defend her honor from being rape. She is known as a heroic her for the Romans for herself sacrifice, the Romans celebrate the feminine ideals of virtur and chastity being.

Description
Lucretia is wearing a beautiful golden dress which gives you the status of a wealthy woman. The fashion of the dress is during the Renaissance. Even though her dress is somewhat disarray exposing her under garment, the fabric of her dress is stain with blood accepting her death. On her right hand she is gripping a dagger that had made the wound to her heart, while the left hand grips what seems to be a bed tassel. Her face express embodied despair and hopelessness, her small lips express the desperate sadness that she bears. The painting of Lucretia is not supposed to idealized beauty, since has a plain face. The color of her skin has a sickening pale color to it, there a glint of a white pearl earring that contrast the background.

Subject
This painting is depicting an ancient Roman myth written by a man named Livy. During the ancient Roman and Greek era myths and legends of women committing suicide to keep their virtue pure was a popular among them. It was a way to promote feminine ideals for ever female to follow Legend goes, Lucretia was a noblewoman who was married to Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, while her husband was out with his duty his friend Sextus and few of his men went to visit her. They wanted to see out of all of them who has the most virtue wife. Lucretia gracious hosted her husband guess. Nightfall came everyone left, Sextus was determined to have Lucretia for himself. Couple of days had pass and he went back to see her without noticing, he sneaked to her room at night. Threatening her that either she sleep with him or get killed along with a servant to make it seems that she was having an affair with a servant. The next day she sends a letter to her father Spurius Lucretius and her husband when they arrived she explained what had happened to her. Lucretia eager her them to get revenge for her, before she stab herself she stated that her punishment was necessary, because of her chasity of being a wife was taken away from her and it was not excused even though she was raped.

Compare & Contrast


Rembrandt painted another Lucretia in the year of 1664 it is now in the National Gallery of Art. This painting is quite different from the one that was made in 1666, it follows the iconographic tradition which show the dagger before she stabbed herself. There was a comment made by Sir Lawrence Gowing that the Minneapolis figure is not Lucretia, but another Roman heroine who goes by the name of Arria who stabbed herself to enourage her husband Paetus who was sentenced to death by Claudius for rebelling against him. Rembrandt used many of his family and friends as model for his painting, for the painting that was made in 1664 it was commented that his daughter-in-law Magdalena Van Loo was the one who posed for this painting and many more.

Influence
Caravaggio influences spread to the Netherlands which provided adaptation of figural postures, structural principle and tenebrism. The example of Caravaggio's style is illuminated figures, spot-lit, emerging from surrounding shadow. Which shows in the painting the spot light is on Lucretia since she is the focus. Expressive postures is something that Caravaggio is known for; in the painting we see Lucretia holding on the bed tassel to hold balance because she is growing weak from losing blood. The dark shadow that is called tenebrism is Caravaggio signature style; we can see the dark shadows on her face and dark background to bring her toward the viewers .Since there is evidence that Rembrandt learn of Caravaggio composition, such as their evidence for other artist using his name and style, like the Carracci and many more. There might be a connection between the Caravaggio David and Rembrandt Lucretia painting; the body have similar composition, the head share similar abstraction both having a slightly tiled to an angel. Both forms end below the waist, the horizontal marks on Lucretia dress reflect to David bone structure. Lucretia chain across her dress is closely similar to the line of David’s shirt. While David is holding the head of Goliath, Rembrandt introduce Lucretia holding a bed tassel. .



Peer Review

 * Intro is well written and provides the appropriate amount of info. I think you should include the title of the painting in the first line.
 * The description is detailed and well organized. The second sentence could use re-wording.
 * The history section is really good and the most informative part of the article. It would read better if the sentences weren't so short.Also there are some spelling and grammatical errors in this section. For example, the last word of the last sentence needs a D.
 * The article is informative and well organized, but it could use more sections and more info about the artist, style, and commission. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thottdisick (talk • contribs) 16:48, 4 April 2019 (UTC)