Jill Burke is British historian, art historian and writer. She is best known for her work on the art and culture of Renaissance Italy.
She studied at Benton Park School, Trinity College Oxford, the Courtauld Institute of Art, and Harvard University. [1]
She is a professor in History at the University of Edinburgh. [2] [3] Her work has appeared in The Guardian [4] and The Daily Telegraph, [5] and BBC Radio 4 [6]
The Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, [and] the most parodied work of art in the world". The painting's novel qualities include the subject's enigmatic expression, monumentality of the composition, the subtle modelling of forms, and the atmospheric illusionism.
In art history, the High Renaissance was a short period of the most exceptional artistic production in the Italian states, particularly Rome, capital of the Papal States, and in Florence, during the Italian Renaissance. Most art historians state that the High Renaissance started between 1490 and 1500, and ended in 1520 with the death of Raphael, although some say the High Renaissance ended about 1525, or in 1527 with the Sack of Rome by the mutinous army of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, or about 1530. The best-known exponents of painting, sculpture and architecture of the High Renaissance include Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Bramante. In the 21st century, the use of the term has been frequently criticized by some academic art historians for oversimplifying artistic developments, ignoring historical context, and focusing only on a few iconic works.
Jennifer Anne Saville is a contemporary British painter and an original member of the Young British Artists. Saville works and lives in Oxford, England and she is known for her large-scale painted depictions of nude women. Saville has been credited with originating a new and challenging method of painting the female nude and reinventing figure painting for contemporary art. Some paintings are of small dimensions, while other are of much larger scale. Monumental subjects come from pathology textbooks that she has studied that informed her on injury to bruise, burns, and deformity. John Gray commented: "As I see it, Jenny Saville's work expresses a parallel project of reclaiming the body from personality. Saville worked with many models who underwent cosmetic surgery to reshape a portion of their body. In doing that, she captures "marks of personality for the flesh" and together embraces how we can be the writers of our own lives."
An art model poses, often nude, for visual artists as part of the creative process, providing a reference for the human body in a work of art. As an occupation, modeling requires the often strenuous 'physical work' of holding poses for the required length of time, the 'aesthetic work' of performing a variety of interesting poses, and the 'emotional work' of maintaining a socially ambiguous role. While the role of nude models is well-established as a necessary part of artistic practice, public nudity remains transgressive, and models may be vulnerable to stigmatization or exploitation. Artists may also have family and friends pose for them, in particular for works with costumed figures.
Lisa Anne Jardine was a British historian of the early modern period.
Lavinia Fontana was an Italian Mannerist painter active in Bologna and Rome. She is best known for her successful portraiture, but also worked in the genres of mythology and religious painting. She was trained by her father, Prospero Fontana. She is regarded as the first female career artist in Western Europe, as she relied on commissions for her income. Her family relied on her career as a painter, and her husband served as her agent and raised their 11 children. She was perhaps the first female artist to paint female nudes, but this is a topic of controversy among art historians.
Flaming June is a painting by Sir Frederic Leighton, produced in 1895. Painted with oil paints on a 47-by-47-inch square canvas, it depicts a sleeping woman in a sensuous version of his classicist Academic style. It is Leighton's most recognisable work, and is much reproduced in posters and other media.
In culture, a "fig leaf" or "fig-leaf" is a literal or figurative method of obscuring an act or object considered embarrassing or distasteful with something of innocuous appearance. The use of an actual fig leaf for the purpose originates in Western painting and sculpture, where leaves would be used by the artist themselves or by later censors in order to hide the genitalia of a subject. Use of the fig plant in particular came about as a Biblical reference to the Book of Genesis, in which Adam and Eve used fig leaves to cover their nudity after eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Andrew Michael Graham-Dixon is a British art historian, art critic, author and broadcaster.
The Portrait of a Young Woman is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance master Raphael, made between 1518 and 1519. It is in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Palazzo Barberini, Rome.
The nude, as a form of visual art that focuses on the unclothed human figure, is an enduring tradition in Western art. It was a preoccupation of Ancient Greek art, and after a semi-dormant period in the Middle Ages returned to a central position with the Renaissance. Unclothed figures often also play a part in other types of art, such as history painting, including allegorical and religious art, portraiture, or the decorative arts. From prehistory to the earliest civilizations, nude female figures were generally understood to be symbols of fertility or well-being.
The Venetian painter Titian and his workshop made at least six versions of the same composition showing Danaë, painted between about 1544 and the 1560s. The scene is based on the mythological princess Danaë, as – very briefly – recounted by the Roman poet Ovid, and at greater length by Boccaccio. She was isolated in a bronze tower following a prophecy that her firstborn would eventually kill her father. Although aware of the consequences, Danaë was seduced and became pregnant by Zeus, who, inflamed by lust, descended from Mount Olympus to seduce her in the form of a shower of gold.
Alessandro Michele is an Italian fashion designer and creative director of Valentino. He grew to international recognition as the creative director of Gucci, the Italian fashion luxury house where he worked from 2002 to 2022. Known for his maximalist designs, Alessandro Michele revived Gucci's popularity, most notably with a Geek-Chic aesthetic. He had been responsible for all of Gucci's collections and global brand image from January 2015 until he stepped down from the role in November 2022.
Sharmadean Reid is a British Jamaican entrepreneur. She is the founder of WAH Nails and Beautystack. She is an advocate for women's empowerment.
Dame Alison Marie Rose-Slade is a British banker. She was chief executive of NatWest Group from November 2019 to July 2023 and the first woman to lead a major lender in the UK. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2023 Birthday Honours.
Sarah Law is a former Scottish rugby player from Penicuik, near Edinburgh. She played for Scotland and represented them over fifty times internationally, including at the 2021 Women's Six Nations Championship. Law was the fourth Scottish woman to receive a professional rugby contract from Scotland. She kicked the match-winning penalty in the win against Wales in the 2017 Women's Six Nations Championship to beat the opposing team for the first time in seven years. She repeated the feat under even more pressurised circumstances in 2021 when her 82nd minute conversion of a Chloe Rollie try put Scotland through to the qualification final for the Rugby World Cup at the expense of their opponents Ireland.
Milo Leonard Edwards is an English comedian, podcaster and writer. He co-hosts the podcasts Trashfuture, Masters of Our Domain, Toomuch (Тумач), and Glue Factory. He has performed comedy in both English and Russian, including on the shows Open Microphone and StandUp. He has been a comedy writer for Late Night Mash, Mock the Week, Hello America, Breaking The News and The News Quiz and has written for Private Eye and The New Statesman. He has been descdribed by Chortle as ‘one of the UK’s smartest, most vital stand-ups'.
Whitewashing in art is the practice of altering the racial identity of historical and mythological figures in art as a part of a larger pattern of erasing and distorting the histories and contributions of non-whites. It mirrors the racial biases and prejudices of those times, which continue to impact society today. It encompasses various facets reflecting historical biases.