Face of a woman

Luigi Nono's 'Face of a Woman' (1887) belongs to his series of female head studies — the generic title suggesting either an unidentified sitter or a work intended as a purely formal exercise rather than a portrait of a specific individual. His female head studies explored the range of emotional expression and physical type that interested him, each variation providing fresh material for his investigation of the female face. The study format allowed him to work with greater freedom than his finished genre compositions required.

Nono renders the female face with his characteristic academic precision within an atmospheric ground — the study format allowing focus on the face's specific qualities without the compositional complexity of his narrative subjects. His tonal modeling creates the face's three-dimensional presence through careful value observation. The female face as subject received his most sustained attention in these studies, which functioned as reservoirs of observational experience for his more elaborate genre works.