mariano vargas

ALEXANDRE INSPIRATION I

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Artwork details

The thematics of the artwork

About the artwork

The oldest portrait commissioned from the painter Rembrandt inspires this photograph. The artwork, painted in 1631, demonstrates the Dutch artist's great ability to capture the silhouette, the subject's attitude, and the spontaneity of a gesture. He proved himself capable of finding the "movements of the human soul" and of characterising the person beyond a mimetic rendering of the model. Using highly sophisticated staging, the young man photographed by Mariano Vargas in 2016 poses in the manner of the rich dealer Nicolaes Ruts. Almost 400 years separate the two images and yet, it seems difficult for the spectator to differentiate between painting and photograph in this savvy combination of purity and insolence. Mariano Vargas nonetheless distinguishes his work through an extremely contemporary approach, by integrating an element from daily life into his image, which conspicuously disrupts its interpretation. The deed of sale present on the original painting seems to have been replaced by a Polaroid picture.

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