The mirrored gaze - inspired by Rubens

Narcisse - acrylic on panel - 24x18 - 2014.

Venus at her Mirror, by Peter Paul Rubens, circa 1614-15.

I came across Rubens' wonderful self-gazing Venus again the other day; as is already obvious, this lovely painting was the inspiration for one of my own from three years ago. The history of beauty in art has largely been based on the depiction and objectification of the female face and form. I always enjoy honoring/subverting that history by taking the iconic images of sensual beauty and placing a male face and form in the woman's former pose; I think men still have plenty of catching up to do where objectification is concerned.

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And because scans, for all their many virtues, often seem to flatten out modeling and texture, skew color balance, limit the range of color, here are photographs - which obviously have their own limitations - taken at the painting's completion, and which maybe give more of an idea of the actual modeling, texture, and color balance and range; if there were only some way to blend the two processes...?

The glamorous uniform - Ladies-in-waiting and Russian court dress, circa 1830s-40s

Ladies in the "Blazon Room" of the Winter Palace, by Adolphe Ladurner, 1838. (Detail of below.)

Ladies in the "Blazon Room" of the Winter Palace, by Adolphe Ladurner, 1838.

Unknown lady (Anna Alexeievna Okulova?), by Pimen Nikitich Orlov, circa 1835-37.

Henrietta Bodisco, by Johann Konrad Dorner, 1844.

Maria Petrovna Kikina, later Volkonskaia, by Pyotr Feodorovich Sokolov, 1839.

Princess Elisaveta Alexeievna Paskevich, née Griboyedova, by Nikolai Gustavovich Shilder, circa 1830s-40s.

Unknown, unknown artist, circa 1830s.

Three illustrations of court dress from 1834.

The Volkonsky children with blackamoor, by Karl Briullov, 1843.

Sofia Vassilievna Orlova-Denisova, by Pimen Nikitich Orlov, 1835.

Princess Natalia Vladimirovna Obolenskaia-Neledinskaia-Meletskaia, née Mezentsova, unknown artist, circa 1834.

Men, boys, and artists. And dogs.

James Achilles Kirkpatrick (at 16), by Nathaniel Hone the Elder, 1780.

Marc Chagall, by Yuri (Yehuda) Pen, 1914.

Unknown, circa mid-nineteenth century.

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, by Osip Braz, 1912.

The Boy with the Arrow, by Douglas Volk, 1903.

Agasse with a bulldog, by Firmin Massot and Jacques-Laurent Agasse, circa 1795.

Prince Kazimierz Nestor Sapieha, by Józef Pitschmann, 1787.

Robert S. Day as Rex, King of Carnival, unknown photographer, 1892.

Detail of below.

Segismundo Moret y Quintana, by Federico de Madrazo y Kuntz, 1855.

Jaime Girona, later first conde de Eleta, by Federico de Madrazo y Kuntz, 1856.

Unknown, circa second half of the nineteenth century. (Courtesy Ralf de Jonge.)

Portrait of a Young Nobleman, by Jacob Ferdinand Voet (?), circa 1670s-80s.

Joven sentado con libro, Gerardo Sacristán Torralba, 1930.

Self-portrait, by Louis Meijer, 1838.

Rudolph Valentino with his Irish wolfhound Centaur Pendragon, Chicago, circa 1925.

Detail of below.

Patrick Heatly, by Johan Zoffany, circa 1783-87.

Giacomo Meyerbeer (composer, born Jacob Liebmann Beer), by Friedrich Georg Weitsch, 1802.

Eustaquio Marín Ramos (painter), by José Villegas Cordero, 1900.

Unknown, circa first half of twentieth century.

Herthier de Boislambert, by Wojciech Kossak, 1924.

Head of a Young Man, also known as Portrait of a Sailor, by John Singer Sargent, 1878.

Self-portrait, by Nikolai Alexandrovich Yaroshenko, 1894.

"Souvenir de Charles de Pape à ses chers cousins de Bruxelles, 22 08 1904." (Courtesy Ralf de Jonge.)

William Burlton Bennet en chasseur (in hunting costume), by Henri-Pierre Danloux, 1802.

Autoportret z paletą, by Teodor Axentowicz, 1898.

John Barrymore, 1897.

Peotr Lachinov, by Henri-François Riesener, circa 1820-22.

Unknown, circa early twentieth century. (?)

Thomas Hooke Pearson, by George Chinnery, circa 1824.

Unknown man, formerly known as James Scott Duke of Monmouth and Buccleuch, unknown artist, circa 1640s.

Self-portrait in Pink, by Domenico Baccarini, 1903.

William Henry Betty as Young Norval in "Douglas" by James Heath, by John Opie, 1804.