Traditional Art - Renaissance Portrait #3

 

The portrait I’ve chosen to analyse is Renaissance artist Titian’s “Portrait of a Young Man” (1515). I chose this piece because I felt it radiated a simple but effective presence and had an interesting way of leading the eye throughout the portrait.

The most obvious factor to the portrait is the strong contrast between the darkness of the background and some of the clothing and the lightness of the facial area. This contrast really frames the face, making it stand out vividly against the darkness, making you pay attention to the face and take in the details. Also the colours to the face a quite warm what with the red tint to the man’s cheeks, adding a further contrast between that and the colder, murky colours of the background.

Another aspect to the portrait that is visually striking is the use of colour on the shirt. I’m unsure whether Titian did this intentionally but the red sleeve was what grabbed my attention first and from that my eyes went up and then landed on the face. The colour use was quite dramatic so it grabbed my attention first before all else. It may also have been the fact that the subject isn’t looking towards us but instead off to the side that the face didn’t pull my attention towards it first (I think if he was looking towards us then my eyes would’ve landed there to begin with). But these two aspects put together made for an interesting visual journey throughout the portrait.