THE MINIATURE ... A PASSION! Cinzia Defendi. 
By the way ... worth spending a few words about the term "MINIATURE"!
MINIATURE: The word miniature comes from the Latin minium, the name given to a red-orange pigment, which is used just to decorate the initials of the manuscripts or to indicate an image created to decorate ancient manuscripts in the medieval period is also called "aluminizing, art graphically illustrate and decorate the manuscripts, or" illuminatura "(in English and French are used in fact enluminure and illumination respectively) are assumed to derive from the bright, vibrant colors that stand out on the written page, but it is not , it is said that "aluminizing" references instead of alum, called the lumen in the Middle Ages, which was mixed with coloring as a binder for lacquers.
It's called "miniature" any small format painting executed with minutiae of detail.
used by the Egyptians (technique in water colors on sheets of papyrus) next to the hieroglyphics in the Book of the Dead and in magical papyri, erotic and satirical. The world
greek-roman (watercolor on parchment) illustrated since sec. II BC works of literature and scientific treatises, in addition to manual designs, and the end of the century. IV AD, the biblical texts and evangelical.
In Byzantium in the East ... then ... ... in Europe (see history of Miniatures) ...
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What is most interesting here is the thumbnail-RITRATTO.Dal 1460 with the advent of printed books of the illuminators profession also had to turn their attentions to a new type of production for private prayer or semplicemnete objects of luxury. This type of miniature generally consists of oval or rectangular medallions placed under glass, often richly framed in the manner of jewelry to be hung around his neck. They could also be embedded to decorate boxes, snuff boxes and other personal items. So
developed the genre of miniature-portrait, which was first done in oil on copper plates or other metal, especially copper but also silver and tin. Almost all major
Mannerist painters also work in this genre, starting in France by Jean Clouet and Lucas Horenbout, both teachers with excellent technique and able to make the most of the psychology of the subject. Clouet is also working to spread the technique of Limoges enamels which was perfected by applying it to the thumbnail. Horenbout instead strove to spread the thumbnail at the highest levels of English society even painting the family of Henry VIII and sometimes copying the pictures from the royal apartments. Also taught the technique of the miniature court painter Hans Holbein which in turn gave way to the spread of gender in the German territories;
in England, Germany and the Netherlands Deep bass was the influence of portraits by Hans Holbein, Lucas Cranach and then Antonie van Dyck.
In Italy instead of the first miniatures can be traced back to the work of Bronzino '40s of the sixteenth century, but also to Parmigianino, Barocci, Tintoretto, Carracci were attributed several thumbnails.
The best of luck of the miniature-portraits, usually in watercolor on ivory, this news comes from the proven technique of paint used on the lids of snuff-painted very popular in Venice. The immediate consequence was the reduction of the paint surface due not only to the greater difficulty of using the watercolor on the new medium, but also to the growing fascination with the use of portraits enamel generally smaller. Rosalba was the first to introduce the miniature portraits on ivory in small transport carried out the same vitality and airy paintings of his characters on a small scale. Although very influential at the court of Louis XV was a triumph in the wake of the Rococo Fragonard, Boucher and Watteau. The use of landscape in miniature on porcelain trinkets of all, however, was the eighteenth century and the neo-classical period (Giovanni Battista Lampi, Jean-Honore Fragonard, Elisabet Vigée-Le Brun, J.-B. Huet, R. Cosway, HF Füger).
Even when the romance was still alive fashion miniature portrait of
(in France Jean-Baptiste Isabey and Lizinka-Aimee-Zoe de Mirbel; School of Brussels in Belgium, England E. Miles, in Italy Pietro Valsecchi Bagatti). The miniature
become an established pastime until 1760-70 and most of the illuminators had no type of education. The technique was so widespread as to constitute an entry into society safe for young artists which the aristocrats were made at about thanks to the portraits on commission of their loved ones, but the spread of photography since the mid-nineteenth century it definitively supplanted 'use.
It 'important to stress that it was quite a change from an aristocratic society (including the thumbnail was the expression) a bourgeois (fascinated by photography) a definitive end to the thumbnail.
The 'illuminating', believed historical fact exhausted after the invention of printing and engraving, photography, it is still present today as almost a "necessity" of the contemporary artist.
Today we are more aware of the "macrocosm" in which we are engaged, but we also know more about our "microcosm" (and both do not possess all knowledge), and then being in the "middle" can have different perspectives ... or "our little" and then create great works great and as if to say that we are striving for infinity .... or as artists create works in miniature (just think of the model scale reproductions of miniature rooms, etc ....).
We are surrounded by miniature figures! Just look around: the figure on the landscape of a small bottle of water table, designed to differentiate the various logos, etc.. ... even the "Miniature" which appear here on Blogger, the image has small next to our Post listed ... to "have it more under control .... and also to have that semblance of order to better control
that surrounds us ...
And today there are fans of the Miniature, that this form of ART with passion. The Artist
contemporary miniaturist is almost as if to magnify contemplating the grandeur of the Macrocosm in a small space, reproducing it in detail.
And I place myself among those fans, with meticulous precision on a base of porcelain portray people or animals using photographs to better capture the details in detail.
