Baldassare Castiglione face swap

Where this one comes from

Raphael painted his friend Baldassare Castiglione in Rome around 1514, a few years before Castiglione published The Book of the Courtier, the volume that taught educated Europe how to conduct itself in a room. The panel turned up at an Amsterdam auction in 1639, where Rembrandt sketched it from the floor and then painted himself in something very close to the same pose. It is in the Louvre.

What is in the picture

There is almost no colour in it: black, grey, a soft grey fur, a band of white shirt at the throat, and a beard that is the warmest thing on the canvas. That restraint is the argument. Castiglione’s book insists the whole art of the courtier is to hide the work that went into anything, and Raphael painted the visual form of that idea — a picture that looks effortless and took enormous care. The eyes are grey-blue and squarely on you; the hands fold exactly where the frame stops.

When people use it

For the quiet flex. It is the reply that never raises its voice, and it lands anywhere the joke depends on you conspicuously not appearing to try.

How your face lands in it

A front-facing head under a wide dark cap, lit evenly, with soft edges everywhere and no hard shadow to match. That combination is about as easy as this catalogue gets. The cap draws a level line across the top of your forehead and the beard stays whatever you bring, so a smooth-shaven photograph comes back bearded. Keep your expression flat; the entire picture is built on not appearing to want anything.

Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione — Raphael, c. 1514. Raphael died in 1520. The painting has been in the public domain for centuries and a faithful photograph of it adds no new copyright. Source

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