I have a real passion for scrutinizing women in old paintings. Inspecting every single detail on their faces and examining what make up they wore. Make up mirrors history, and it’s so interesting to see this unraveling on a canvas. If you want to learn more about the history of cosmetics I would highly recommend the Face Paint: The Story of Makeup and The Compacts and Cosmetics: Beauty from Victorian Times to the Present Day. If your preference is videos over books, have a look at this YouTube playlist.
I have a habit of breaking down make up looks from my favorite paintings and collaging products I think those women would have used if they were real. Making up stories is half the fun, imagining how they did their make up is the other half. On my Instagram I’ve posted lots of collages in the past, but I’ve done 4 more entirely for this article, which you can see below.
I hope I intrigued some of you to look at portrait paintings from a different perspective and maybe to explore the history side of make up.
Melanie
The Green Edit
