Virtue and Beauty

The Renaissance period was an innovative time and rebirth of the intellectual and creative thinking. A part of that was women’s role in society and artists painted them according to the rules society has set for them. Looking at women’s portraiture nowadays and portraits from the Renaissance period, it is evident to see they differ in many ways. Renaissance portraiture is lacking a dimension where the inner self is represented, which is to be seen in modern portraiture. Moreover, a renaissance woman was depicted in the way of also representing her social status and laws of being the pure, perfect woman. Virtue and beauty are closely related when it comes to women’s portraiture in the Renaissance period. Even though the women’s features were depicted convincingly, they were portrayed as their families wanted them to be percieved: high class women, very honorable and elegant, being the ideal of what it means to have desirable qualities. If a woman was, and wanted to be, respected, she would leave the home only to attend mass or family events. The highest experience for a woman was to deliberately marry a man her father has selected. According to the baroque artist Pietro Testa the beauty of a woman was concerned with the qualities of the head and shoulders. He spent a lot of time making sketches of the features a woman should posses, following the laws made in that period. He stated the hair should be lonf, fine, blonde and simply knotted, whereas the eyes would have to be large and oval shaped, either blue colored or dark chestnut. The ear must be soft and rosy and the cheeks gleaming white, softly curving. The chin should also be soft and round, never pointed. The neck would be round, slender and pure and the shoulders squarish,...

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...put much emphasis on details and the accuracy of those and his choice of muted colors expresses a subtle elegance that emphasized quality over pretension.
The reverse side has also an epigram resembling the one in Giovanna’s portrait. The inscription said: “VIRTVTEM FOR MADECORAT”, which means “beauty adorns virtue”. Just like in Ghirlandaio’s portrait, Leonardo is suggesting and praising the importance of virtue and how closely it is connected to beauty. Even though these two portraits date from different time periods, the theme of virtue and beauty still remains present in both. It seems as Leonardo da Vinci was already familiar and looking up to Ghirlandaio, which can be thought by the method of having a reverse side of the painting. Both followed Testa’s ‘’laws’’ of the virtue and beauty a woman has to posses and both included two quotes referring this theme.