The Myths and History of Red Hair: Red Hair in Art: Paride Bordone

Thursday, October 13, 2022

Red Hair in Art: Paride Bordone

Pàris Paschalinus Bordón, also known as Paride Bordone (5 July 1500 – 19 January 1571) was an Italian painter of the Venetian Renaissance who, despite training with Titian, maintained a strand of Mannerist complexity and provincial vigour.

In 1534–35, he painted his large-scale masterpiece for the Scuola di San Marco a canvas of The Fisherman Presenting the Ring to Doge Gradenigo (Accademia). However, comparison between this latter painting and the near-contemporary, and structurally similar, Presentation of the Virgin reveals Bordone's limitations, his use of superior perspective which creates dwarfed distant perspectives, and limited coloration relative to the brilliant tints of Titian.

Bordone also painted smaller cabinet pieces, showing half-figures, semi-undressed men and women from mythology or religious stories in a muscular interaction despite the crowded space. He frequently combined portraiture with allegory.

Paris Bordone subsequently executed many important mural paintings in Venice, Treviso and Vicenza, all of which have perished. In 1538 he was invited to France by Francis I, at whose court he painted many portraits, though no trace of them is to be found in French collections, the two portraits at the Louvre being later acquisitions. On his return journey he also worked for the Fugger palace at Augsburg, but again the works have been lost.

His works feature many redheads and he himself may have been one.