Tronie. A tronie is a common type, or group of types, of works common in Dutch Golden Age painting and Flemish Baroque painting that shows an exaggerated facial expression or a stock character in costume.
It is related to the French word trogne which is slang for mug or head. The term 'tronie' is not clearly defined in art historical literature.
Literary and archival sources show that initially the term 'tronie' was not always associated with people. Inventories sometimes referred to flower and fruit still lifes as 'tronies'.
More common was the meaning of face or visage. Often the term referred to the entire head, even a bust, and in exceptional cases the whole body.
A tronie could be two-dimensional, but also made of plaster or stone. Sometimes a tronie was a likeness, the depiction of an individual, including the face of God, Christ, Mary, a saint or an angel. In particular a tronie denoted the characteristic appearance of the head of a type, for example a farmer, a beggar or a jester. Tronie sometimes meant so much as a grotesque head or a model such as the type of an ugly old person. When conceived as the face of an individual and of a type a tronie's aim was to express feelings and character in an accurate manner and must therefore be expressive. In modern art-historical usage the term tronie is typically restricted to figures not intended to depict an identifiable person, so it
It is related to the French word trogne which is slang for mug or head. The term 'tronie' is not clearly defined in art historical literature.
Literary and archival sources show that initially the term 'tronie' was not always associated with people. Inventories sometimes referred to flower and fruit still lifes as 'tronies'.
More common was the meaning of face or visage. Often the term referred to the entire head, even a bust, and in exceptional cases the whole body.
A tronie could be two-dimensional, but also made of plaster or stone. Sometimes a tronie was a likeness, the depiction of an individual, including the face of God, Christ, Mary, a saint or an angel. In particular a tronie denoted the characteristic appearance of the head of a type, for example a farmer, a beggar or a jester. Tronie sometimes meant so much as a grotesque head or a model such as the type of an ugly old person. When conceived as the face of an individual and of a type a tronie's aim was to express feelings and character in an accurate manner and must therefore be expressive. In modern art-historical usage the term tronie is typically restricted to figures not intended to depict an identifiable person, so it
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