1996/07/01 by John F. Moffitt · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Neuroscience · #Renaissance and Early Modern Studies #Art History and Market Analysis #Aesthetic Perception and Analysis #Sphinx #Art #Painting #Art history #Situated #Humanism #Performance art #Visual arts #Computer science #Philosophy #Artificial intelligence
paper · doi:10.2307/2863160
openalex publication_date 1996/07/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/04/04
In an article recently published in this journal, I argued that a certain, often discussed, hybrid encountered in Bronzino's wellknown painting depicting The Exposure of Luxury (ca. 1545, National Gallery, London; also known as Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time) was actually intended to represent a “sphinx” [fig. 1]. Whatever its proper designation, this is the bizarre figure that may be espied lurking in darkness (as much metaphorical as physical), just as she/it was placed in the middle ground of the far right side of Bronzino's carefully contrived composition [fig. 2]. This darkly crouching creature was situated by the ingenious painter behind the brightly illuminated figure of a nude and joyful putto tossing roses, so making it literally hidden (occulta).