Giovanni Caroto

Red-haired boy supporting a drawing

Oil on wood, 37 x 29 cm.

Museum I gave Castelvecchio, Verona, Italy

Giovanni Caroto (1480 - 1555)

 

It already does thing of one year there was a big exhibition in the museum of the Meadow, “The portrait in the Renaissance” that showed a series of very interesting works. Perhaps for that reason this picture is now more well-known. But for the long time it was not stopping being one more portrait. Pero durante mucho tiempo no dejaba de ser un retrato más.

 Giovanni Caroto (1480 - 1555) is the author of the portrait. He was an Italian painter who was born and lived in Verona in full climax of the Renaissance, somewhere near 1515 that is when it realized this painting. Its artistic production is based on the portrait, belong already to several personages or to the only one. He is considered to be one of the teachers of Paolo Veronés. Su producción artística está basada en el retrato, ya sea de varios personajes o de uno solo. Está considerado como uno de los maestros de Paolo Veronés.

 The title of the picture, in Spanish, is more or less a red-haired Boy supporting a drawing (bambino Ritratto with disegno). The work is in Verona in the Museum I gave Castelvecchio.

The presence of young people or children in the painting was not anything novel. There were abundant the pictures in which cherubs, cherubs or children Jesus were appearing. But this picture has special importance because he is one of the first ones in a child shows in its real aspect, that is to say, that is not an idealized portrait, but rather everything opposite. It shows to the child, proudly, that one turns the spectator to show us a drawing that he has realized himself, perhaps his own self-portrait. And this is other of the things that does this special picture: to show a scrawl that a child realized almost five hundred years ago. Since in any essay of a work of art, on having studied, this one acts, it is necessary to put it as regards its time and it is necessary to bear very in mind, in this singular case, which in those times in Italy was looking for the perfection in the art by means of the classic measurement and the cánones of beauty. Said this, the picture supposed the whole adventurousness on having showed an ugly aspect of the everyday life how it was the simple drawing of a child. I doubt that its father was keeping the drawing, but: proud what would have to be of the child to entrust a portrait with him of the hand!   Pero este cuadro tiene especial importancia porque es uno de los primeros en mostrar un niño en su aspecto real, es decir, que no es un retrato idealizado, sino más bien todo lo contrario. Muestra al niño, orgulloso, que se vuelve al espectador para mostrarnos un dibujo que él mismo ha realizado, tal vez su propio autorretrato. Y esa es otro de las cosas que hace este cuadro especial: mostrar un garabato que un niño realizó hace casi quinientos años. Como en todo ensayo de una obra de arte, al estudiar ésta obra hay que ponerla en relación con su tiempo y hay que tener muy presente, en este singular caso, que en aquellos tiempos en Italia se buscaba la perfección en el arte por medio de la medida clásica y los cánones de belleza. Dicho esto, el cuadro supuso todo un atrevimiento al mostrar un aspecto feo de la vida cotidiana como era el simple dibujo de un niño. Dudo que su padre guardara el dibujo, pero ¡qué orgulloso tendría que estar del niño para encargar un retrato con él de la mano!  

The portrait is an image, it is an identity and it is a memory and it constitutes an authentic graphic document for the study of life and custom of an epoch for the later generations. Since it is possible to observe of the attentive contemplation of the small scrawl they have changed the artistic skills of the children. Little difference we can find between this drawing painted by a child in the XVIth century and one of those that the children of the XXIst century can be doing now in the school. Poca diferencia podemos encontrar entre este dibujo pintado por un niño en el siglo XVI y uno de los que pueden estar haciendo ahora en la escuela los niños del siglo XXI.

The portrait of the young boy stands out for its simplicity, for its informality in the treatment of the double image and for its contrast between the strong reality of the young man painted the portrait with its scribbled self-portrait.

I have to confess that the first time that I it saw I thought that of a prank it was talking each other. That someone douched in the handling of the photoshop there was "tuneado" this Caroto portrait. But no, they had not changed this plain infantile, linear and awkward drawing into any more successful other. It was like that and like that there proved to be such which in the exhibition of the Prado Museum in 2008. Pero no, no habían cambiado este escueto dibujo infantil, lineal y torpe por algún otro más logrado. Era así y así se mostró tal cual en la exposición del Museo del Prado en 2008.

 Luisjo

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