An Antique Artist
1628
unspecified
From the collection of Rijksmuseum
1628
unspecified
From the collection of Rijksmuseum
You see an old man holding a paint palette and brushes in one hand, a skull and a drawing of muscles in the other. This isn’t a real person—it’s an imagined artist from ancient Greece or Rome, painted in the 1600s. The skull and muscle drawing hint at the link between art and science back then. The painter probably never saw a real antique artist, so this is pure invention. To see more paintings like this, look up chiaroscuro—the way light and shadow give depth to faces.
