Getty Museum
Self-Portrait
Creator
Francesco Paolo MichettiItalian Artist · 1851–1929
All works by this person →Francesco Paolo Michetti learned painting's rudiments from a local fresco painter. In 1868 he traveled to Naples, supported by a small grant to study at the academy there. Asserting that his temperament would benefit more from real life situations, he was allowed to return to the Abruzzo region in 1869 and continued to receive his grant. Michetti exhibited at the Paris Salons of 1872 and 1875, but
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- 1877
- Medium
- Pastel and gouache, on brown paper
- Culture
- Italian
- Department
- Drawings
- Institution
- Getty Museum
Francesco Paolo Michetti chose to title this drawing *Scherzo* to reflect the intention behind his self-portrait. To express the idea of a *scherzo*, a sprightly musical composition or movement, Michetti applied his materials in a quick, gestural manner that conjures up the music's darting, skipping rhythms. The brilliance of Michetti's color, particularly the halo of white around his face, also evokes the *scherzo* 's liveliness. During the later 1800s, many artists believed in a concept known as *synesthesia*: that color and sound were so closely related that color could stimulate the sensation of sound and sound could stimulate the sensation of color. At age twenty-six, in the same year that one of his pictures received great public acclaim, Michetti drew multiple self-portraits. His direct gaze, the proud angle of his head, and the bravura handling convey his self-confidence.
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