Friday, June 3, 2011

Molti Ritratti: Sarah Bernhardt


The Divine Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923) was certainly divine enough to inspire painted portraits along with many, many photographs. Her Wikipedia entry is here and a search for images on Google or Bing will offer many aspects of her.

Unfortunately for us, photos of her taken when in her physical prime are too staged to give much of an impression of her personality. By the time photography became flexible, she was already in her 50s.

So it was left for the painters to capture her spark. Below are some examples I culled from the Web.

Gallery

Here is a photo to set the stage.

By Georges-Antoine Rochegrosse

By Georges Clairin - 1871

By Georges Clairin - 1876

By Hans Makart - 1881

By Louise Abbema

By Theo van Rysselberghe - 18881

By Giovanni Boldini

By Jean-Léon Gérôme - 1895

By Alphonse Mucha - 1896


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