The Guitar Player, Emine Dilber Isik

The Guitar Player, Emine Dilber Isik

REPRODUCTION STUDY

Guitarist | Jean-Baptiste Greuze | 1755

The artist is the typical representative of French Rococo. Although he was faithful to the movement in many of his paintings and his upper-class characters enjoyed their free time, Greuze is now recognized for being honest and less pompous than his couples. In the case of the guitar player, we see his character as distorted and focused on the musical instrument. Although many think that musicians play the guitar, he actually tunes it; He's adjusting the tuning peg like one of his hands. Therefore, he adopted this awkward posture to listen intently to the tones of the strings, bringing his right ear to the side of the guitar.

This work also has very interesting features. Initially, the musical instrument is not actually a guitar, because it has a very short fretboard. While tuning a guitar is easy, other strings (often with paired strings) are more complex. Presumably, this difficulty is the reason for the character's angry appearance. Shall we take a closer look at the work, or even more curious: the hand that adjusts the tuning peg is on the inside of the guitar player's jacket, and the other is free. This detail allows us to understand that the character is in a hurry and therefore the work seems spontaneous.

In 2005, with the 200th anniversary of the artist's death, the French maqam Greuze issued a stamp celebrating the guitarist.