Pompeii No.20: The Muse of Painting

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As I studied this engraving by the 19th-century illustrator, Hugo Bürkner, it occurred to me that he had in turn studied Michelangelo, and that my color interpretation of Bürkner's engraving would benefit from my revisiting Michelangelo and his work.

The Sistine Chapel: A Glorious Restoration

The great irony of this resplendent painting by Michelangelo, the tondo of the Holy Family, is that its creator didn't consider himself a painter and vigorously resisted most painting assignments. Even more amazing is that the man who commissioned this as a wedding gift for his wife was dissatisfied with the result.

The Sistine Chapel: A Glorious Restoration

In all of Renaissance painting, one will be hard pressed to find a more sensitively rendered infant Jesus.

I've chosen the tondo primarily as a color reference, and in particular, I'm looking at Michelangelo's sumptuous fabrics.

I begin with lots of color reference at hand, and by working upon a light, neutral silhouette. To work directly on those dark background colors would be difficult for me (though I have known artists who do like to work from dark to light).

I've made a number of changes to Bürkner's original design to suit my own purposes:

• The image is reversed so that the shadows fall in the same direction as the mural's adjacent columns.
• I'm guessing that the two small figures, which are male and female, represent the yin and yang of creativity. But as all the muses will be feminine, I have decided to make all their attendants masculine. We'll just have to come up with a different allegory for these two.
• I've added height to the pedestal, and that has everything to do with adjusting the figures so that they bisect the two background colors in a pleasing manner.
• I've also lengthened the muse's paint brushes, just to add a little more generous dimension.
• The muses's face is more mature, and I've indicated that she actually does have a jaw!

• I wasn't sure what instrument the boy was resting his hand on, but I've painted it to look more like a prism. Then I added reflected light to the bottom of his leg.
• One of the biggest changes is getting rid of all that fussy Victorian underbrush. For a sparer, more classic foliage, I turned to Mr. Wedgwood, below.

source

 Below is the final Muse of Painting.

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No matter how much color correction I do, the purple of the base translates more vividly on the Internet. It is in actuality less intense.

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Next week we'll go to the opposite wall
and look at the Muse of Sculpture.

I hope you'll join me then!

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