The Five Senses, Sight

The series of paintings illustrating the Five Senses reveals a clearly Baroque sensibility, evident in the artist’s capacity to capture the psychology of his sitters, the portrait’s realism resulting from the artist’s skill in capturing the spontaneity of a fleeting moment. Gonzales Coques painted two other series of paintings devoted to the five senses, of which one is currently in the National Gallery, London. In the series in the Brukenthal Art Gallery, the painter emphasizes the psychological states of his sitters, apparently common people, from the lower middle class. In this series, the attributes of the senses only serve as pretexts, to include in the composition a number of static elements (tables laden with food, musical notes, smoking paraphernalia, medical instruments, and an easel). In the painting entitled Sight, the artist introduces us into the intimate atmosphere of a young man, who is presented lightly dressed and coatless. The thematic attribute here is a mirror, and the subject’s mood is one of self-discovery, tinged with the teenager’s characteristic narcissism. The viewer is drawn in and invited to participate in the scene, the subtle psychological message being that the young man studies his image in the mirror, in order to discover his reflection in the eyes of the beholder. ©Dana Roxana Hrib, European Art Gallery Guidebook, Second edition, Sibiu 2011.