#nanna risi

[cameronmccoy9161994]

Disney's The Haunted Mansion | The Medusa Changing Portrait (2003 Film Version)

The gorgon (Medusa) changing portrait from the Disney Theme Park Attraction, "The Haunted Mansion", appearing in the 2003 film is applied on Sir Frederic Leighton's "Portrait of a Roman Lady". It's the portrait of Anna Risi (known as "La Nanna" or "Nanna"). She becomes Medusa's gorgon form, with Caravaggio's depiction of the beheaded "Medusa" on a shield applied when that painting transforms. As shown on the DVD Menu, this painting is in the main "Set Up" where she morphed. If you have "The Haunted Mansion" on DVD and you wish to go see the Medusa changing portrait, here are the following two steps:

1. Go to "DVD Menu".

2. Select "Set Up".

[countesspetofi]

Top left, painted by Leighton, top right, sculpted by Auguste Clésinger, bottom left, painted by Feuerbach, bottom right, painted by Schmitt.

I became fascinated by her when I used this detail from one of her Feuerbach portraits as my Facebook profile pic and people who had known me IRL for decades thought it was a photo of me run through an oil painting filter. Granted, that outfit does kind of look like my costume from Julius Caesar, and I did wear my hair kind of like that for a few minutes.

BTW, the Schmitt portrait kind of looks like Deanna Troi wrapped in an HBC Point Blanket.

Anna Risi

Anna Risi was the wife of a cobbler in Trastevere. In 1858, Frederic Leighton discovered her, and she sat for him for at least five portraits, which he submitted to the Royal Academy in London. Three were exhibited and highly praised.

In 1860 she was discovered again, by Anselm Feuerbach. She soon left her husband and children and moved in with Feuerbach as his lover and muse. He saw in her the perfect incarnation of antique beauty. The sculptor Joseph von Kopf described her thus:

Tall, earnest, with interesting face, magnificent black hair, gaunt of figure but not without a certain grandezza.

Feuerbach painted 28 portraits of her, usually in melancholy with her head lowered. Additionally she sat for many of his history paintings. The Adolf Friedrich von Schack, who patronized Feuerbach, wasn’t all too happy to see the same face over and over and over again. But the painter was smitten with her. He showered her with presents, constricted her with extreme jealousy. Early in 1862 he wrote to his stepmother:

I am in possession of the most beautiful model of all of Rome, to the envy and anger [of the other artists].

At the end of 1865 she left him for a wealthy Englishman who traveled Southern Italy. Feuerbach soon overcame the shock and replaced her with a new model, Lucia Brunacci. He soon saw Nanna again. Her new relationship hadn’t worked out, dirty and desolate, she was begging in the streets of Rome. He chose to ignore her.

She continued to sit for, mainly German, painters. The last known picture of her is a portrait by Nathanael Schmitt, dated 1874. Otherwise, nothing is known about her life. Feuerbach once mentioned that she had an incurable heart disease. Maybe she did not live very long.

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Anselm Feuerbach (German, 1829-1880) The Mandolin Player, 1868

The young mother listens raptly to the father, enlarged in his mandolin playing in the shadows of an arbor. Her blue cloak and the green foliage surrounding her remind us of depictions of the Madonna in an enclosed garden (Hortus conclusus). But Anselm Feuerbach does not depict family bliss in this idyllic garden scene. Rather, here he has created a symbol of personal melancholy. The artist has portrayed himself as the mandolin player. The mother is Anna (Nanna) Risi, the wife of a shoemaker from Trastevere, whom Feuerbach viewed as the embodiment of the classic ideal of beauty. This was in keeping with his endeavor to produce a painting that is timeless. Nanna became Feuerbach's model and mistress in 1860, but left him in 1865 for an Englishman, plunging Feuerbach into a deep personal and artistic crisis. The two did not have a child together. His great love did not turn out to be eternal but, instead, as fleeting as the music.

[timotey]

Portrait of Nanna Risi, art by Anselm Feuerbach (1861)

[hildegardavon]

Ferdinand Keller, 1842-1922

Nanna Risi as Ariadne, n/d, oil on canvas, 23.5x39 cm 

Source: Paint Gallery

[artesplorando]

Anselm Friedrich FEUERBACH, Nanna c. 1861 Oil on canvas, 74 x 56 cm Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne Anna Risi fu la modella di Anselm. In lei l'artista trovò l'incarnazione degli ideali classici di bellezza.

[missmarpling]

(via The Burden of Beauty)   the sad story of Nanna Risi, Roman model 1850s

[books0977]

Pavonia (1859). Lord Frederic Leighton (English, 1830-1896). Oil on canvas.

In 1858 Leighton settled in Rome, where he met the striking Italian beauty Nanna Risi who was the model. Risi, as a result of her sensual and classical beauty, became a much sought after model amongst the growing number of expatriate artists. Leighton managed to capture her mysterious seductive quality as Pavonia.

[molkolsdal]

Portrait of Nanna Risi by Anselm Feuerbach

[molkolsdal]

Portrait of Nanna Risi by Anselm Feuerbach

[molkolsdal]

Nanna Risi was the model for Pavonia (the woman in my icon). I just looked her up and found more paintings of her. I am now convinced that she is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.