Painting is described as beautiful with wavy, thick hair holding a palette in one hand and a brush in the other. She has two wings from her head and a raised arm showing the elevation of intellect. Kauffman’s Invention follows the aesthetic tradition described by Ripa as a young woman, dressed in white, as Invention is pure. She would have seen dictionaries of iconography such as Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia. Linberg writes that Kauffman’s women “radiate both spiritual and physical vitality, in a way that, at least on the face of it, has a resemblance to, for example, Michelangelo’s athletic sibyl in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which Angelica Kauffman must have seen and studied, or to Artemisia Gentileschi’s history painting” (Linberg, p.26).Īrtists and viewers of art in the 18th century would have been well versed in reading iconography and Kauffman’s works contain many symbols sourced from classical iconographic traditions. Kauffman represented strong female bodies inspired by examples from the Italian Renaissance. When displayed in the ceiling, the paintings are paired, with one practical and one theoretical at each side of the room. In Invention the figure looks to the sky for inspiration and in Composition she is deep in thought with her head in her hands. In Design and Colour the figures are physically engaged in the act of creation whereas in Composition and Invention the figures are engaged in reflection. They represent Joshua Reynold’s theories in his Discourses on Art, given in lectures at the Royal Academy and later published in 1788. Some contemporary references also used the title Colouring. Angelica Kauffman’s four paintings collectively represent the ‘Elements of Art’: Invention, Composition, Design and Colour.
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