Portrait by Renaissance master expected to soar past $80M

[lunatica]

4. I appreciate quite a few elements in this painting

The overall rather restrictive use of straight lines and rectangles which give it an almost austere composition, yet there is a great deal of softness in the pleasant human face and form and hands. The young man is not being framed by the the rectangle form behind him. He’s painted breaking up the straight lines all around him and his left hand with the two fingers seems to be intruding into the bottom straight geometric form below it, so it looks like his fingers are painted past the hard rectangle, like they’re escaping past the edges of the canvas. The medallion is also in a different position, being the only part that is cut off by the hard edge of the canvas. The effect is of a subtle softness not conforming too strictly to its surrounding environment.

Because there is no sense of what his surroundings really are other than flat rectangles the human figure is dominating the structure by the modeling of the highlights and shadows within it.

That’s my two cents. Great painting.