Lavinia Fontana

In our class today, our group played the Bolognese artist Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614). So I did a little more research about her paintings and I realized I really enjoy her different style of work. As Dr.Wolbrink showed in class one of her well recognize paintings is the Chess Game, Fontana paints her sisters along with their servant representing their status and wealth. But what really intrigued me was how the artist paints most of her clients looking directly at the artist or “you” the audience. Here are some examples:

The Chess Game

The Madonna and Child with a Donor 

The Madonna and Child with a Donor painting is different from her Chess Game because in this one we don't have the servant or "Donor" looking at the child instead he is looking at the artist. 

In this painting, we see Fontana capturing infidelity and wealth of this family. We know she is portraying infidelity because of the children and the dog in the mother's arms. They are also looking at us or the artist from all different angles and perspective. 

Sources: images on Google