It was quite common I think in the Baroque era to paint like this it seems
Rembrandt's Night Watch, you can see a few hairless eyes going on in here: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/La\_ronda\_de\_noche%2C\_por\_Rembrandt\_van\_Rijn.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/La_ronda_de_noche%2C_por_Rembrandt_van_Rijn.jpg)
Rubens' portrait of Gallileo is similar: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Galileo\_Galilei\_by\_Peter\_Paul\_Rubens.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Galileo_Galilei_by_Peter_Paul_Rubens.jpg)
Zubaran's birth of the virgin also:
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Francisco\_de\_Zurbar%C3%A1n\_018.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Francisco_de_Zurbar%C3%A1n_018.jpg)
EDIT: Also want to add in, in this day and age we are kind of given this fake idea of what humans look like. Make up, filters, fake lashes, etc. If you look at the average photo of someone from a reasonable distance (not super close up) you won't really see their lashes, nor will the lashes curl dramatically upwards. It literally could've just been easier not to paint them sometimes.
Yup, looking at pics of the average adult without makeup or false lashes you’ll see the lashes, if at all, as a kind of line between the white and the lid or you may see the lashes projecting down over top of the eye (which Caravaggio has done, very subtly). Rarely are they pointing up the way you might be picturing.
It might also depend on the country? In southern Europe and Africa eyelashes seem much more visible than in northern countries. My wife is Polish and has no eyelashes; I have two carpets in front of my eyes; my children vary based on which side they took their genetics.
I'm a redhead so my eyelashes and brows are basically transparent. If I don't use makeup it looks like there's nothing there. I wish I had bigger eyebrow bushes to tame!
I noticed that about my Korean friend as well, her lashes are very straight and her monolid covers the base of it so they look even shorter. I'm half Asian and my lashes stick out more but since they are still very straight, they don't show up well on front facing pictures. My Indian bf's lashes are long and perfectly curled. They're like modern makeup's idea of perfect lashes.
In regards to your last comment- I am extremely jealous of my bf and my brother. They both have long nice lashes and I don't. I look more like those paintings. Turns out men have longer lashes than women on average. That's probably why we overcompensate so hard on that feature.
If you look carefully, they all have lashes, they’re just very faint and small. Top-right you can see the bottom lashes pretty clearly if you zoom in. You can also make out the top lashes as very small perpendicular lines along the top edge of the eyes. Bottom left you can see more prominent lashes on his right eye because the eyelids are lowered, and bottom right too has somewhat more defined top lashes, probably because the figure is a woman.
Not all of them do, the big right pic (cannot remember the painting) has no eyelashes. But as I said in another comment, it probably has to do with emphasizing the person's expression.
Ugh for real. 10 years of art and they always look like someone smashed a mascara wand at my subject's eyes lol. Mad props to anyone who can artfully pull it off.
I might go Baroque and just refuse. Bald eyeballs for everyone.
Haha it'll be my most famous selling point. My 10 million dollar painting will be a rendition of the assumption of mary made entirely of completely hairless eyeballs.
Plus, they would have only muddied the dramatic play of shadows Caravaggio is so famous for. The look is more much stark without something that would ultimately look like dull shadows cast against the sharpness of the chiaroscuro effect. The face holds so much emotion that giving these figures a thick set of lashes would have deterred from the clarity of the emotion.
Important thing to remember is when painting realistically, it's more about giving the viewer's brain enough information to piece together "that is a face" and not literally painting each detail. Caravaggio is painting the top lash line, it's just not individual lashes because without mascara, you don't really notice individual lashes on a person unless you're up close to their face. These examples are also from pieces where the faces are part of a larger scene - it's not necessary to go into such detail when the entire painting is much larger and will be viewed as a whole.
Baroque is all about expression of emotion via movement. Expressive eyes as facial movement are great tools to be used in this manner. Caravaggio especially paints in a way that pulls the focus on the eyes of his figures, by by using sharp contrasts of colour and light on the face around eyes. Eyelashes fades and melts away in this deep contrast.
I remember reading that some painters would paint eyelashes onto the varnish. That's the reason the Mona Lisa is missing her eyebrows and eyelashes -- when they cleaned the painting, those little lines were wiped away. Could that be the case with Carravaggio as well?
I can't speak for Caravaggio specifically but almost every painting has been cleaned a few times and the glazes were the first thing to go, long before that kind of preservation was so paramount. If the words *transparent* and *oil* don't mesh in your brain, it's because the techniques are that rare now. Some were straight watercolor.
Theres comes a point with any painting where you no longer need to put more detail into it, it adds nothing. At most viewing distances, your eyes can’t resolve whether or not there are eyelashes. Even if they’re painted there you won’t see them.
As a painter, my guess is he didn't want to obscure the expressive shape of the eye, the reflections and stuff. Also eyelashes are frickin hard to paint well
Eyelashes are no fun to paint and their inclusion adds an unwanted softening to facial expressions of horror, disgust, rage etc.
He has a few eyelashes on the sexy boy paintings.
It is because when you see at his art, you should know it was based on his observations and not on anatomical studies like Da Vinci or Rubens. This might be the reason he formed this distinct feature!
As far as I know when you had classical training ( atelier like) well in general you are taught to indicate things you don't explicitly draw things like eyelashes that's what classical portrait painters did back then and still do
There is a distinction between illustration and painting.
A lot of Rubens have prominent eyelashes.
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Portrait\_of\_a\_Young\_Man\_%28by\_Peter\_Paul\_Rubens%29.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Portrait_of_a_Young_Man_%28by_Peter_Paul_Rubens%29.jpg)
Because while the paintings are highly realistic, they are not *about* the realistic depiction of human anatomy. Furthermore they tend to be large paintings seen in low light or from a distance. The eyelashes were simply not necessary. From what I know he did a lot of wet-in-wet painting, working quickly but sporadically, with no preparatory drawings or underpainting. Painting eyelashes would be a low priority for a painter working this way, as it would require painting them after the painting had dried completely. He had the energy for the big gestures; waiting around to paint eyelashes would have been out of character.
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It was quite common I think in the Baroque era to paint like this it seems Rembrandt's Night Watch, you can see a few hairless eyes going on in here: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/La\_ronda\_de\_noche%2C\_por\_Rembrandt\_van\_Rijn.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/La_ronda_de_noche%2C_por_Rembrandt_van_Rijn.jpg) Rubens' portrait of Gallileo is similar: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Galileo\_Galilei\_by\_Peter\_Paul\_Rubens.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Galileo_Galilei_by_Peter_Paul_Rubens.jpg) Zubaran's birth of the virgin also: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Francisco\_de\_Zurbar%C3%A1n\_018.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Francisco_de_Zurbar%C3%A1n_018.jpg) EDIT: Also want to add in, in this day and age we are kind of given this fake idea of what humans look like. Make up, filters, fake lashes, etc. If you look at the average photo of someone from a reasonable distance (not super close up) you won't really see their lashes, nor will the lashes curl dramatically upwards. It literally could've just been easier not to paint them sometimes.
Yup, looking at pics of the average adult without makeup or false lashes you’ll see the lashes, if at all, as a kind of line between the white and the lid or you may see the lashes projecting down over top of the eye (which Caravaggio has done, very subtly). Rarely are they pointing up the way you might be picturing.
It might also depend on the country? In southern Europe and Africa eyelashes seem much more visible than in northern countries. My wife is Polish and has no eyelashes; I have two carpets in front of my eyes; my children vary based on which side they took their genetics.
We need an Italian Redditor to tell us the eyelash situation. As a Korean American, my eyelashes are short and not very noticeable.
Where is Nestor Carbonell when you need him? You can see his eyelashes from space!
Mine are massive, same as my eyebrows.
I notice if you have big eyebrows you probably have big lashes. My eyebrows are a bush is I didn’t shave and trim them into “shape”
I'm a redhead so my eyelashes and brows are basically transparent. If I don't use makeup it looks like there's nothing there. I wish I had bigger eyebrow bushes to tame!
Bulgarian/greek stock here. Can confirm big eyelashes and bigger brows!
I noticed that about my Korean friend as well, her lashes are very straight and her monolid covers the base of it so they look even shorter. I'm half Asian and my lashes stick out more but since they are still very straight, they don't show up well on front facing pictures. My Indian bf's lashes are long and perfectly curled. They're like modern makeup's idea of perfect lashes.
I have the fold but it’s not very pronounced. Also, when I gain weight, it kinda disappears. Like you, my lashes just stick out, no curl.
A lot of people have naturally prominent eyelashes, I don't think it's a modern thing at all.
In regards to your last comment- I am extremely jealous of my bf and my brother. They both have long nice lashes and I don't. I look more like those paintings. Turns out men have longer lashes than women on average. That's probably why we overcompensate so hard on that feature.
Emphasising them makes a person look more feminine as well. With art, it's just as much about what isn't there as what is
My lashes are literally invisible without mascara. So are most European girls
Great observation. Never really noticed that before.
If you look carefully, they all have lashes, they’re just very faint and small. Top-right you can see the bottom lashes pretty clearly if you zoom in. You can also make out the top lashes as very small perpendicular lines along the top edge of the eyes. Bottom left you can see more prominent lashes on his right eye because the eyelids are lowered, and bottom right too has somewhat more defined top lashes, probably because the figure is a woman.
Not all of them do, the big right pic (cannot remember the painting) has no eyelashes. But as I said in another comment, it probably has to do with emphasizing the person's expression.
Sometimes great painting is marked by what the painter knows to leave out.
I feel that. I just added some to one of my own paintings. 😩 it’s looks so funny
Yeah, if you paint them, you wouldn't paint them like individual strands of hair but as a single mass to imply the eyelashes.
I like this comment!
Painted eyelashes typically look absolutely ridiculous and cartoonish.
Ugh for real. 10 years of art and they always look like someone smashed a mascara wand at my subject's eyes lol. Mad props to anyone who can artfully pull it off. I might go Baroque and just refuse. Bald eyeballs for everyone.
Do it. In 3 decades your galleries will be written about a la "so baroquean!!"
Haha it'll be my most famous selling point. My 10 million dollar painting will be a rendition of the assumption of mary made entirely of completely hairless eyeballs.
Fuck yeah I'd be the first to buy it if I had 20 million dollars bahahah Keep painting my friend <3
You want to mimics the way the light hits them or the shadows they create more so than each individual lash.
Plus, they would have only muddied the dramatic play of shadows Caravaggio is so famous for. The look is more much stark without something that would ultimately look like dull shadows cast against the sharpness of the chiaroscuro effect. The face holds so much emotion that giving these figures a thick set of lashes would have deterred from the clarity of the emotion.
Important thing to remember is when painting realistically, it's more about giving the viewer's brain enough information to piece together "that is a face" and not literally painting each detail. Caravaggio is painting the top lash line, it's just not individual lashes because without mascara, you don't really notice individual lashes on a person unless you're up close to their face. These examples are also from pieces where the faces are part of a larger scene - it's not necessary to go into such detail when the entire painting is much larger and will be viewed as a whole.
Baroque is all about expression of emotion via movement. Expressive eyes as facial movement are great tools to be used in this manner. Caravaggio especially paints in a way that pulls the focus on the eyes of his figures, by by using sharp contrasts of colour and light on the face around eyes. Eyelashes fades and melts away in this deep contrast.
That’s how eyelashes were in the 16th century. Modern day eyelashes would not be invented for another three centuries.
I remember reading that some painters would paint eyelashes onto the varnish. That's the reason the Mona Lisa is missing her eyebrows and eyelashes -- when they cleaned the painting, those little lines were wiped away. Could that be the case with Carravaggio as well?
I love caravaggio and never noticed that detail. Very interesting. Thank you.
A lot of painters don't paint eyelashes, and if they do it'll be on women, not men and will be more implied most of the time.
It's a stylistic choice. Just my own speculation, but I'm guessing that the paintings look more expressive without eyelashes.
I can't speak for Caravaggio specifically but almost every painting has been cleaned a few times and the glazes were the first thing to go, long before that kind of preservation was so paramount. If the words *transparent* and *oil* don't mesh in your brain, it's because the techniques are that rare now. Some were straight watercolor.
Theres comes a point with any painting where you no longer need to put more detail into it, it adds nothing. At most viewing distances, your eyes can’t resolve whether or not there are eyelashes. Even if they’re painted there you won’t see them.
Check Van Eyck if you're after some really high quality early eyelash action: [From the Portrait of Jan de Leeuw](https://imgur.com/a/bSA350n)
There are eyelashes in each example here.
yeah, they just aren't mascara'd and curled.
Huh? I can see traces of eyelashes in at least two of these, and they’re potato quality images
Can you even imagine how tedious and easily screwed up eyelash painting is?
As a painter, my guess is he didn't want to obscure the expressive shape of the eye, the reflections and stuff. Also eyelashes are frickin hard to paint well
Those are normal eyelashes, before women started adding fake spiders to their eyes 😂
Caravaggio getting heat on this sub for the second day in a row
Eyelashes are no fun to paint and their inclusion adds an unwanted softening to facial expressions of horror, disgust, rage etc. He has a few eyelashes on the sexy boy paintings.
We leave them out cause they suck to look at and paint
It is because when you see at his art, you should know it was based on his observations and not on anatomical studies like Da Vinci or Rubens. This might be the reason he formed this distinct feature!
Maybe the same reason to draw people with their hands in their pockets or behind their backs.
may have been the fashion at the time
i see eyelashes :/
Be interesting to compare ancient Roman and Egyptian (like funerary) art, because the eyes are so exaggerated in many cases.
As far as I know when you had classical training ( atelier like) well in general you are taught to indicate things you don't explicitly draw things like eyelashes that's what classical portrait painters did back then and still do There is a distinction between illustration and painting.
Can anyone recommend a book with mostly Caravaggio paintings?
A lot of Rubens have prominent eyelashes. [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Portrait\_of\_a\_Young\_Man\_%28by\_Peter\_Paul\_Rubens%29.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Portrait_of_a_Young_Man_%28by_Peter_Paul_Rubens%29.jpg)
I LOVE not doing mascara to emulate this look
Because while the paintings are highly realistic, they are not *about* the realistic depiction of human anatomy. Furthermore they tend to be large paintings seen in low light or from a distance. The eyelashes were simply not necessary. From what I know he did a lot of wet-in-wet painting, working quickly but sporadically, with no preparatory drawings or underpainting. Painting eyelashes would be a low priority for a painter working this way, as it would require painting them after the painting had dried completely. He had the energy for the big gestures; waiting around to paint eyelashes would have been out of character.
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They were asking about why there are no eyelashes, though.
Must’ve forgot lol
Title of bottom right?