Day 416 - Sketches and character sketches in oil

May 3, 2025 Gallery 639 contains a number of small oil paintings, and its introductory wall sign bears the title "Oil Sketches." In fact, however, only some of the paintings are "sketches" - that is, preparatory works intended to guide larger treatments of the same subject. The remaining paintings are what I would term character studies - paintings of men and women meant not to capture a likeness, as a portrait would do, but to convey a quality that is generalizable, not tied to a particular individual. Many works of both types are by well-known artists, including Rubens, Van Dyck, and Tintoretto. My choice for today, in contrast, is by a Roman painter I'd never heard of, Orazio Borgianni, who se dates are 1578-1616. It's a relatively small (about 20 inches high and 15 inches wide) oil on canvas showing the head of an old woman. Her forehead is deeply wrinkled; lines, too, surround her cast-down eyes. The skin above her bodice has a crepe-y consistency I ...