Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 14, 2015

Portrait of a Young Girl is a small oil-on-oak panel painting in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, by the Early Netherlandish painter Petrus Christus. It was completed between 1465 and 1470, towards the end of the artist's life, and marks a significant advance in the oeuvres of both Christus and contemporary portraiture. The girl is set in an airy, three-dimensional, realistic setting, confronting the viewer with an expression that is reserved, but alert and intelligent. She reflects the Gothic ideal of elongated facial features, narrow shoulders, tightly pinned hair and an almost unnaturally long forehead. The painting is widely regarded as one of the most exquisite Northern Renaissance portraits. Art historian Joel Upton describes the sitter as resembling "a polished pearl, almost opalescent, lying on a cushion of black velvet." The panel builds on the work of the first generation Northern Renaissance painters Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, and was highly influential in the decades after its completion. Its appeal lies in part in the intriguing stare, accentuated by the slight misalignment of her eyes and asymmetry of her eyebrows. (Full article...)

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