PULLING FACES: ANTONELLO DA MESSINA ’ S
LAUGHING, SMILING SUBJECTS
ANNA SWARTWOOD HOUSE
Among the biographical sketches in Francesco Maurolico’s 1562 Sica-
nicarum Rerum Compendium, commissioned by the Messinese Senate,
is an extraordinary description of a painting by fifteenth-century painter
and native son Antonello da Messina (ca. 1430–79):
Antonello da Messina from the Antoni family of painters made true
images of living things and of animals, nearly alive . . . He painted a
picture of two old Palermitani, one a man, the other a woman, both
wrinkled, laughing at each other, making provocative gestures, such
that those who looked at it were also moved to laughter.
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source: notes in the history of art. spring 2018. © 2018 by bard graduate
center. all rights reserved. 0737-4453/2018/3703-0004 $10.00
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