Title: An old women (“The Ugly Duchess “ )

Artist: Quentin Matsys

Year: Around 1513

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/quinten-massys-an-old-woman-the-ugly-duchess

this is a formal analysis on Quentin Matsys piece titled the ugly duchess shows an unappealing old woman with wrinkled skin and withered breasts. The painting is made from oil paint and it is on an oak wood panel, measurements of 62.4 by 45.5 cm. She wears the horned headdress, her clothes are old fashion according to the time of the painting was created, and she holds a red bud rose, this artwork gives a symbol of engagement. Specify that she is trying to attract a man. The budding flower she holds indicates her love life that will never grow just like the broken budding flower.

I am going to be doing contextual analysis  on the ugly duchess The panting of an Old Woman maybe an image of Margarete Maultasch. She was known as the ugliest woman in history. She lived about 150 years before Quentin Matsys so he would have to use his imagination or surviving records to make the painting. Recently a professor of medical humanities at University College London, and his student Christopher Cook researched the ugly duchess painting and said that the women in painting have a Paget’s bone disease. It is a chronic condition by the enlargement and distortion of bone. In Paget’s disease, makes abnormal fracture of bones. The National Gallery in London, which has this painting, accepted their research. this is an Feminist analysis on , A Grotesque Old Woman portrait painted by male artist Quentin Matsys. It gives the viewer a nasty feeling about the matsys the artist, like he disrespected females by making a really unattractive version of women. showing  all women cleavage can mean a lot of different means like women don’t respect their own self or that all women’s want man’s attention even if there old or unattractive.

I believe this artwork is about god creations. when I first looked at this artwork it made me think about god how he creates all a different kinds of humans and animals but some are so appealing to human eyes and some are very disturbing that we can’t even look at them for 10 seconds. The artist is trying to show the viewer what he discovered maybe the image came in his dream. I did not like the work when I first chose it because the old women in the painting scared me I never even   imagined women like that before because from what I saw and heard, the  women is always fetching.

The women in the artwork might be hideous but the painting itself is very engrossing because of the punctilious. If this painting didn’t mean anything why would the artist spend his time on meaningless art? This art can give you a different perspective of the world, that you can’t change every single thing in your life there will always be something that cannot be changed and you have to learn to leave with it. We as human want to change anything that we do not like for example car, house or even relationship. The women in the art are sharing her feeling about her life, she want to be pretty like other women so the try to dress attractively by wearing a fancy headdress but she is still miserable because even with everything she can do there is her bones structures that will be impossible to change. My opinion has been changed in the process of learning about this art because this artwork is not just grotesque it can teach every person something and I love the details and realism the artist uses it can make you imagine how the women will be in real life.

References

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3561937/Art-mystery-solved-The-Ugly-Duchess-had-Pagets-disease.html

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2008/oct/11/art-painting