Artists' Beards, Mustaches, and Facial Hair

LAA Pitcher, Archie Bradley

I've been noticing the wild and often untamed facial hair of Major League Baseball of late while watching the Seattle Mariners on TV. Pitchers are known to 'paint' the corners of the strike zone. One of the more tamed beards belongs to Los Angeles Angels pitcher, Archie Bradley. It would fall into the category of a Garibaldi beard, after the famous Italian General Giuseppe Garibaldi.

LAA Outfielder, Brandon Marsh

LAA Outfielder, Brandon Marsh's is the polar opposite, including more of a Forest Gump look. 

Portrait of a Man in Red Chalk
(Early 1500s), da Vinci

It reminds me of portraits of old masters like Leonardo da Vinci and the statue of Michelangelo's Moses.

Impressionist, Camille Pissarro

M's Pitcher, Sergio Romo

Seattle Mariners pitcher, Sergio Romo's beard is also impressive, reminding me of Impressionists Camille Pissarro and Claude Monet, though opposite in color, like that of St. Nicholas. Romo's beard would be that of a Garibaldi style if it was less than 8 inches in length.

Autumn (1573), Arcimboldo

Artist, Giuseppe Arcimboldo's Autumn (1573) is a portrait of a man comprised of fruits and vegetables, including a beard made out of wheat.

Self-Portrait with Sunflower (~1633), Van Dyck

The van dyke style of beard popular in the 17th century was named after Flemish painter Anthony Van Dyck. Unlike the goatee, a van dyke is often pointed and also includes a mustache. You may remember the actor, Monte Woolley, from the 1942 movie The Man Who Came to Dinner co-starring Bette Davis. He also played an eccentric writer in The Bishop's Wife (1947) opposite David Niven and Cary Grant. Let's not forget General Armstrong Custer and KFC's iconic Colonel Sanders.

Dali Photographic Closeup

Often, it's the mustache that stands out most among the wearers of facial hair. One of the most iconic belongs to Spanish Surrealist Salvador Dali. I enjoy teaching about contrast and opposite colors to elementary school students using Dali's Persistence of Memory (1931). He was as eccentric as his unusual paintings, keeping an ocelot as a pet, and focusing on Sigmund Freud and his study of dreams. Perhaps he should have spent more time taming those bushy eyebrows!

Portrait of Joseph Roulin (1889), Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh and other artists painted portraits of men sporting muttonchops. This style of beard often leaves the chin area without hair and the mustache area also shaven. Hugh Jackman's X-Men character, Wolverine sports such a beard sans mustache. Such split beards are known as French forks.

Self Portrait Dedicated to
Dr. Eloesser (1940), Frida Kahlo

Another of my favorites is Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo, famous for her somewhat unique and iconic unibrow. Nowadays, even men will groom their eyebrows -- some may refer to them as 'metrosexuals'. Back in the day, when men let their beards grow wild, they also let their eyebrows and ear and nose hairs go untrimmed. In my opinion, if you're going to bother to precisely trim a mustache, goatee, or van dyke style beard, then you should also pay attention to those other wild areas. I'll forgive those who grow full beards as long as they occasionally trim them and always keep them void of food remnants!

Kenneth Branagh

David Suchet

Another mustache example is that of Agatha Christie's character, Hercule Poirot. I've been watching reruns of the 1989 TV series starring David Suchet as Poirot. His signature stache looks fake and almost plastic. The more recent Murder on the Orient Express (2017) and Death on the Nile (2022) films, starring Kenneth Branagh as the famous sleuth, created a much more believable, even spectacular, layered mustache, complete with soul patch.

(Apparently, Poirot's stache is meant to cover up scars from lacerations he suffered during a WWI explosion.)

Portraits of Artists' Fathers

Winter 1946 (1946), Andrew Wyeth

Last year, I posted Fathers of Art Movements in honor of Father's Day. This year, I thought I'd research artwork that honors the fathers of famous painters. A good example would be Andrew Wyeth's Winter 1946, a portrait of a young man running aimlessly down a hill, which, following the tragic death of his father, Newell Convers Wyeth (and grandson), became a sort of tribute. The boy may actually represent the artist himself trying to make sense of his father's tragic death.

Portrait of Camille Pissarro
(1893), Lucien Pissarro

I like Lucien Pissarro's rendering of this simple drawing of his father, Camille Pissarro, who is one of my favorite impressionist painters. It may be seen at Tate Britain in London, although I don't recall seeing it during our UK trip in June 2017.

Portrait of Alexander J. Cassatt
and His Son, Robert Kelso Cassatt
(1884), Mary Cassatt

We've all seen the iconic Whistler's Mother, a portrait of the artist's Mother, a subject common to many artists. Its title is actually, Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1. More common are paintings of mother and child. French impressionist, Mary Cassatt, painted this portrait of her brother and her nephew. The father is reading a newspaper, offset by the boy's white collar. Their heads and hands stand out from the contrasting black shape of their suits.

The Artist's Father, Reading
"L'Événement" (1866),
Paul Cézanne

The perspective in Paul Cézanne's portrait of his father seems a bit off and his father's body twisted, making him look uncomfortable while reading his newspaper (~The Event). It also looks like the subject is wearing gray stone-washed Levi's.

The Return of the Prodigal Son
(1663 - 1665), Rembrandt

Although there's a category of painting known as Rembrandt's Father, such paintings have NOT been attributed to the artist. Instead, I'm including Rembrandt's The Return of the Prodigal Son, which hangs in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. I saw lots of dark portraits when I visited the museum during our Baltics cruise in June 2019. It would have taken days to see everything!

First Steps After Millet (1890), Van Gogh

My daughter recently visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC and saw Van Gogh's Starry Night hanging there. Also on display there is his painting of a child taking its first steps toward the farmer father. It is one of Van Gogh's final paintings inspired by a similar painting by Jean-François Millet.

Brita and me (1895),
Larsson

I love this watercolor portrait of Swedish artist Carl Larsson and his two-year-old daughter, Brita. It hangs in the National Museum in Stockholm. The colors and expressions indicate the happy childhood of Brita, unlike that of the artist, who himself had a rather contentious relationship with his own father. He and his wife went on to have eight children. Although we visited the Moderna Museet while in port on our Baltic Cruise in June2019, we did not get to see the National Museum

Portrait of My Father (1951), Kahlo

Frida Kahlo painted this portrait of her father, Wilhelm, in 1951. He has the same eyebrow(s) and a marvelous mustache. He was a Hungarian-German artist-photographer.

Escher's Father (1916),
M.C. Escher

Expressionist M. C. Escher produced this portrait of his father in 1916. It looks like a block print. I like the simplicity, probably for the same reason that I liked Pissarro's portrait (above).

Facts of Life (1956), Rockwell

I end this post with a dedication to my father, who in his own right was an artist that inspired all of us boys to explore our talents. Although Norman Rockwell did not pay tribute to his own father, I enjoy his Facts of Life illustration of a father giving advice to his son. Curiously, there is a maternal cameo silhouette hanging on the wall in the top left corner. The pair is also surrounded by what appears to be a mother cat and her kittens. I wonder what this father-son talk is about!