What are we talking about?

Someone has them but wants to change their color, others want them shorter, those who no longer have them cry remembering them, or opt, now resigned, for the more classic carryover or hairpiece, what am I talking about? Easy: about hair! But addesso I ask you something more difficult: has hair always been so important in the history of human beings, or perhaps, earlier, when the species was much younger, it was simply considered as a kind of thick and showy fur, to be left free to express itself without resorting to hairstyles or hairdressers? We don't actually know whether, as in the famous Flintstones cartoon, cavemen dressed up by combing their hair and stuffing bones into their locks, but it is certain how, in ancient Egypt, hair, arranged and immortalized in pharaonic tombs, represented a clear symbol of wealth as well as social status, so much so that it was well maintained by means of a hygienic practice of linseed oil, which was mixed with olive oil and soapwort root, or wood ash. What's more, dyes, which were made through the use of berries, tree bark, minerals, insects and plant seeds, were already in vogue at the time, aimed primarily at reproducing the most fashionable hue at the time: dark brown. Turning quickly to the medieval age, and thus leaving aside centuries of history, which we let fly in the wind as hair lost and remembered, perhaps, only by those who possessed it and now no more, it is good to highlight how during this period the hair came to be associated with magic and superstition, since it was understood as an external and material extension of the soul, which on occasion was treated with magic potions, if not even burned, to prevent, that after being cut, it would enter into the posess of those who wanted to attack the evil eye. In addition, the superstition and ecclesiastical bigotry of the time frame in question associated the act of styling one's hair with the practice of a rather sinful gesture, so much so that it was preferable to wear one's hair in a simple manner, conveying rigor and moralism, rather than to waste lustful time fixing it. On the other hand, as far as color is concerned, blond was the one preferred by medieval men, simply because it was conceived as a symbol of purity of soul par excellence, so much so that those who did not have hair of this color frequently lightened it with chamomile compresses or through long exposure to the sun, to be joined by the application on the skin of herbs and metallic and acid salts, which oxidized the hair. We have arrived, at last, and therefore probably also with some hair less, perhaps lost in the course of the passage of the centuries mentioned above, at the epoch that is the object of our interest, namely the Renaissance, a period in which, referring to classical beauty, locks of hair tied and twisted in soft hairstyles, ready to evoke and arouse the feeling of love, came back into vogue. It is precisely the latter that arises spontaneously from the observation of some pictorial masterpieces of the period, which, analyzed in chronological order, will lead us to acquaint ourselves with the succession of hair fashions, within the historical moment of revival par excellence.

Jan van Eyck, Portrait of Margaret van Eyck, 1439. Oil on panel, 41.2 cm x 34.6 cm. Groeningemuseum, Bruges.

Piero del Pollaiolo, Portrait of a Young Lady, 1470-1472. Mixed media on panel, 45.5×32.7 cm. Poldi Pezzoli Museum, MilanPoldi Pezzoli Museum, Milan.

Raphael, Portrait of Elisabetta Gonzaga, c. 1504-1505. Oil on panel, 52.5×37.3 cm. Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

Titian, The Beauty, 1536. Oil on canvas, 89×75.5 cm. Palatina Gallery, Florence.

Between 1435 and 1470, masterpieces such as Filippo Lippi's Portrait of a Woman with a Man at the Windowsill (1435-36), Jan van Eyck's Portrait of Margareta van Eyck (1439), Rogier van der Weyden's Portrait of a Young Woman (1460), as well as Petrus Christus's Portrait of a Young Girl (1470), testify to the custom of covering, with sorts of hats and veils the hair, while from about 1470 onward it seems, observing other paintings, that the custom of wearing studied hairstyles became widespread, aimed at uniting the work of Piero del Pollaiolo and that of Sandro Botticelli, authors of the intricate hair in Portrait of a Young Lady (1470-1472) and Portrait of a Young Woman (1480-85). Nevertheless, the second master also went to great lengths to debunk what he had just stated in his most famous masterpiece, namely in The Birth of Venus, tempera on canvas, in which the main subject's loose hair is even disheveled by a light breeze, as well as cleverly used, in the lower half of the painting, to cover the demure goddess' pubis. We now come to the fashions of 1488 through the contemplation of Leonardo da Vinci's Lady with an ermine, a portrait of Cecilia Gallerani distinguished by a very well-groomed, though not excessively sumptuous, attire, which is accompanied in the hairstyle by the arrangement of a black lace on the forehead, used to hold in place a veil of the same color as the hair, which has been gathered into a coaxing. We find a similar vision in a slightly later masterpiece, namely Portrait of Elisabetta Gonzaga of 1505, in which the effigy, caught mid-figure in a frontal pose with an archaic flavor, has her hair left loose, but cleverly decorated by the presence of a scorpion-jewel held on her forehead, intended to point to the S-shaped necklace (Scoprione), which the humanist Baldassarre Castiglione, in The Book of the Courtier, mentions in the duchess's possessions. Lastly, I want to summarize the period from 1533 to 1536 by referring to Lorenzo Lotto's Portrait of a Gentlewoman in the Robes of Lucretia (1533) and Titian's La Bella (1536), both of which are accumulated by a hairstyle designed to encircle the head of the effigy. Describing Vecellio's best-known work, the oil on canvas in question would seem to immortalize a subject that, for Renaissance taste, was specifically designed to give form to ideal female proportions, personified, according to art historian Moritz Thausing, by the likeness of Eleonora Gonzata, or those of Isabella d'Este, bearing in mind the Leandro Ozzola viewpoint, an exponent of multiple attempts at identifications that have failed to this day anyway. What is certain is that the maiden depicted against a dark background, captured while wearing elegant clothes, has a rather elaborate hairstyle, realistically rendered by the technical expertise of the Italian master, who, through the variation of the brushstroke, now rougher now smoother, was skilled in obtaining the most varied effects of light refraction. Finally, the hair narrative continues directly into the contemporary, through the point of view of Artmajeur artists such as: Yaroslav Kurbanov, Young Park, and Marta Zawadzka.

THE FATE (2022)Painting by Yaroslav Kurbanov.

Yaroslav Kurbanov: The fate

It is worth noting that on many occasions, within the pictorial narrative, fate, also mentioned by the title of the Artmajeur artist's work, was immortalized through the features of the three Moires, who, likened to the Roman Fates or the Norns, represent mythological figures, whose task is to weave the thread of each man's fate, marking its beginning, to sever it at the moment of the onset of the ineluctable departure. In the case of The fate, however, the painter has depicted only a blindfolded woman, giving voice to his intimate thought that, according to which, fate remains, alas, unknowable, so much so that Yaroslav Kurbanov even goes so far as to affirm, in a sense, the futility of the role of fortune-tellers, stating the following: "Soothsayers and fortune-tellers have always been in great demand, because people want to look into their future and know the answers to all kinds of questions. But the main question everyone is asking is: what is my destiny? Destiny is "always blind," and no one knows what it is." At this point it seems difficult to continue the discussion in question, since, for each of us, even on the basis of religious or mystical beliefs, the object of our discussion seems rather tenuous, relative and uncertain. Turning to a more concrete topic, and certainly more akin to the subject of hair, it is imperative to highlight how the red hair of the protagonist of The fairies leads back to certain symbolic values, which, especially in Western art, have been linked to the igneous element, as well as to the erotic sphere and the alchemical dimension, so much so that in the Renaissance, red was the hue of sulfur and Rubedo, that is, of the phase of the Great Work, which sanctioned the final completion of chemical transmutations, culminating in the realization of the philosopher's stone and the conversion of base metals into gold. Then, perhaps following the latter concept, it is possible to think how the color of the hair of the protagonist of The fairies can, despite the blindfolded eyes of the effigy and the skepticism of the author, actually lead us to a higher form of knowledge.

NEW CHALLENGE MINDSET (2023)Painting by Young Park.

Young Park: New challenge mind set

A partially naked body busy with itself, therefore essentially not conceived to come into visual contact with the viewer, arousing their desire, is portrayed in an intimate environment, at the instant in which it does its utmost to give life to a spontaneous and natural movement, part of the daily toilet: combing the hair, which, held in place with one hand, seems to take the shape of a ponytail, starting at ear level. Similarly, it would be possible to replace her hair with the figure of a violin, as the movement of the young woman's hands would vary little when playing, continuing to be marked by an angular photographic perspective and captured from above. This description does its utmost to build in your mind the image of Degas's Woman combing her hair, work of the French master's maturity, dated between 1887 and 1890, ready to testify how, before Young Park's New challenge mind set, other painters had rendered the intimate relationship that is generated between hands and hair. Regarding the work of the artist of Artmajeur, however, referring to the words of Park herself, she describes the painting with this sort of autobiographical poem:

"All of this is my story.
It is my awareness and perception.
Exposure to new environments, familiar emotions,
and strange situations makes me think and worry and take me to the abyss of emotions.
That chala is always the starting point.
I want to describe those unknown moments that we inadvertently pass over,
or the emotions at that time, or those things that are a waste to miss."

The above reveals how some of the simplest gestures, perhaps because they are less in need of great attention, can direct us into a deep meditative state, where introspection, emotions and memory reign supreme...

INFANTA IN PINK (2023)Painting by Marta Zawadzka.

Marta Zawadzka: Infanta in pink

The subject rendered by Marta Zawadzka's brush is the famous Margaret Therese of Spain, Queen of Germany, Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, as well as daughter of King Philip IV of Spain and full older sister of Charles II, the last of the Spanish Habsburgs. The girl in question is not only famous for all the aforementioned titles, but also, and perhaps mainly, for having been the central figure of the famous Las Meninas painting by Diego Velázquez, as well as the subject of many other subsequent works by the same master. In fact, the very hairstyle she shows in Infanta in pink could make us guess how the artist of Artmajeur probably wanted to re-propose, obviously in a very personal Pop-abstract key, aimed at changing the orientation of the portrayed, the known Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Pink Dress, oil on canvas from 1660, which captures the Margherita in question in a pink dress, crystallizing in the canvas support one of the key figures of Spanish society of the time, through the creation of a careful description of the dress and drapery, which become a sort of second immortalized subject. In the history of hair, on the other hand, the multi-mentioned effigy appears to be equally present, as the protagonist of works, in which the hairdressers of the time indulged themselves somewhat, such as, for example: Full-length portrait of the Infanta Margarita Teresa, the Empress ( 1666), by Gerard Du Chateau, Infanta Margarita Teresa, aged 14 (166) by Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo and Portrait of an Unknown Artist (1662–1664), currently exhibited at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

N.B: Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Pink Dress (1660) could actually also be attributed to Juan Bautista del Mazo!