Giorgione and others had posed her reclining and facing the viewer, making her pose here unusual. The theme was common, seen in paintings by Titian and Rubens, with Venus sat upright. It shows the goddess Venus, whose face is blurred in a false reflection in a mirror being held by her son Cupid. Image by Diego Delso, via Wikimedia Commons.The canonical example of the Venus effect must be Velázquez’ Venus at Her Mirror, also known as The Toilet of Venus or the Rokeby Venus, from 1644-48. The artist used traces of vermilion and lead-tin yellow to tint this area.ĭiego Velázquez (1599–1660), Venus at Her Mirror, The Toilet of Venus (Rokeby Venus) (1644-48), oil on canvas, 122.5 x 177 cm, The National Gallery, London. Above the saint, his quarry and the massive walls of a distant fortress is the figure of God, in a brilliant mandorla of light in the heavens. In 1553-55 Tintoretto used glare effect in the sky of his small masterpiece of Saint George and the Dragon. Jacopo Tintoretto (1519–1594), Saint George and the Dragon (c 1555) (E&I 62), oil on canvas, 158.3 x 100.5 cm, The National Gallery, London. Here I look through some other optical effects employed by masters, leading to deliberate defocussing of the background, and motion blur.Ī couple of recognised optical illusions have been utilised in paintings: the glare and Venus effects, both of which can lead to blurring. In the first article of this pair looking at the intentional use of blurring in paintings, I looked briefly at its role in the depiction of aerial perspective, before looking at the special optical effects and edge control developed by Vermeer, and since adopted by artists in the late nineteenth century.
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