Bronzino: A Young Man face swap

Where this one comes from

Bronzino painted this in Florence in the 1530s, before he became the Medici court painter and turned out the cold enamelled portraits the family is remembered by. The sitter is unidentified: a young man of the educated class, holding a book with his finger keeping the place. The Metropolitan Museum in New York has it, and it is the picture people mean when they say a Mannerist portrait looks like it is judging you.

What is in the picture

Black doublet, black cap, white shirt through the slashes, and an architectural setting in cold grey-green. Two small carved grotesque heads leer from the furniture — one on the table leg, one on the bench — which is a private joke at the expense of all this composure. The proportions are pushed: a very long torso, narrow shoulders, an elegant hand with impossible fingers. The face is polished to the hardness of glazed porcelain and gives away absolutely nothing.

When people use it

For unearned confidence. It suits somebody who has read half of something and formed a view, and it is the correct face for an opinion delivered in a group chat.

How your face lands in it

A three-quarter head in flat, cool, even light against a grey-green wall, with the cap set back and dark hair close at the sides. Mechanically easy. The original skin is smooth and almost translucent, so a warm or textured photograph will be pulled towards that porcelain finish, which is what makes this template look expensive.

Portrait of a Young Man — Bronzino, 1530s. Bronzino died in 1572, so the painting has been in the public domain for centuries and the museum reproduction of it is published on that basis. Source

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