Elective Affinities, hors-série: Noti Klagka
by Nandia Foteini Vlachou
Desperation, some three hundred years apart, and for apparently very different reasons (comparison established by Noti Klagka).
Dosso Dossi, Anger or the Tussle, 1515-16, lozenge panel, 107 x 95 cm, Collezione Vittorio Cini, Venice (detail, from http://www.wga.hu/)
Gustave Courbet, The Desperate man, 1843-1845, oil on canvas, 45 x 54 cm, Private collection (from http://goo.gl/pDI5km)
I Know Where I'm Going 
I have never seen the like of the lozenge panel, and it grabbed me immediately. A nice comparison, but the older painting is the more effective of the two, at least for for me.
Best wishes, Pete.
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I think Dosso Dossi is, in general, particularly fetching: his style is unique and sometimes there is even an otherworldly quality about his works. The interesting contrast here is that, in the Dossi painting, the man pulling at his hair has in all likelihood an allegorical significance, while in Courbet’s portrait the representation is linked with perceptions of the artist (since it is considered a self-portrait as well). There is a great conceptual distance between the two paintings, that is why I thought Noti’s comparison was so successful: the same action that can carry different meanings.
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