Getty Museum
Saint John the Baptist
Creator
Giovanni Agostino da LodiItalian Artist · 1467–1525
All works by this person →Giovanni Agostino da Lodi's signature on a painting in Milan and on a drawing sold at Sotheby's in New York in 1986 were the first clues to rediscovering this important participant in Lombard art. With these two firm documents, scholars have recently reconstructed this artist's life and work from paintings previously attributed to an artist known as Pseudo-Boccaccino, or Boccaccio Boccaccino of Cr
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1500
- Medium
- Red chalk
- Culture
- Italian
- Department
- Drawings
- Institution
- Getty Museum
An intense expression and energetically rendered hair, beard, and pelt animate this vigorous study of a male head. This frowning man's prominent cheekbone and pronounced lines around the mouth emphasize the life implied by his parted lips, free-flowing hair, and focused gaze. Giovanni Agostino da Lodi's insistent diagonal hatching also enlivens the depiction. Such interest in physiognomy, combined with the curls and fur, which almost take on a life of their own, and the red-chalk technique indicate a close knowledge of Leonardo da Vinci's drawings. Da Lodi may have made this drawing as one of a series of physiognomic studies in response to similar drawings by Leonardo. In the depiction of the hair, this drawing displays a *sfumato* shared by Leonardo's *Caricature of a Man with Bushy Hair,* also in the Getty Museum. Almost all of Lodi's known drawings are red chalk studies of heads.
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