And I have just noticed that both of them include the artist. First up is Sandro Botticelli, with his simply baller Adoration of the Magi. You see, unlike other early-mid Italian renaissance paintings that crank up the orientalism in the depictions of the wise men to the max, Sandro skips the bullshit and just goes for the classic medieval paradigm of just putting people in the picture in contemporaneous clothes, who cares if it's supposed to be the first century AD. And it's not just anybody in contemporary clothes, it's Botticelli on the far right and the entire Medici gangsta clique banking family on the left. Cosimo, Piero, Lorenzo. You name it, they're there giving the infant Christ some dope gifts from the San Lorenzo Market or whatever. This big oil on canvas tempera on panel m-m-m-m-m-masterpiece has been posted up in the Uffizi for 227 years. While this is not his greatest work, I just love how at this point where the western art world was going towards naturalistic — if not realistic — depictions of subjects, he just straight up doesn't give a single fuck about continuity or context. In the background are Ancient Roman ruins! In the middle of the "Ancient Rome" timezone! Also this features his trademark style of foliage just right of center.
Secondly, YA BOY IS BACK AGAIN WITH THE FULLY SICK SKILLS AND A SHIT TON OF PAINTINGS INSIDE A PAINTING. That's right motherfuckers, it's the Thriller from Seville-a*, King Kong and his magnum dong opus, Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez and Lasssssssssssssssssssss Meninassssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.
Painter paints himself ✔️
Painter paints other paintings into the painting ✔️
Painter paints a scene that is supposedly not the subject of the painting he's painting in the painting that he's painting ✔️
Painter paints ostensible subject of painting he's painting in the painting in the mirror in the background ✔️
Painting is the subject of works by both Picasso ✔️ and Dali ✔️, the Kobe and Shaq to Velazquez & Goya's Wilt Chamberlain — Hakeem Abdul-Jabbar legacy ✔️
Painting is hung in room 27 of the Prado for maximum Benny auspiciousness ✔️
Diego Velazquez is absolutely the only western painter to beat the Italian masters at their own game (baller big-ass paintings of important people) with their own technology. So much has been written about this painting over the years I don't feel the need to recapitulate it. Just bask in the greatness. Tintoretto? Boring. Titian? Go paint some more strawberry blonde girls ya big baby. Leonardo da Vinci? Lazy-ass also-ran, fobbed off on the French.
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*Yeah it has to be Seville-a for the scansion; Sevilla doesn't rhyme with thriller/thrilla.
