Democrito

In Naples around 1630 Jusepe de Ribera, a Spaniard working in a city ruled from Madrid, made a habit of painting the ancient philosophers as if they were beggars he had passed in the street, ragged, weathered, lit hard against the dark. This one holds a compass and sheets covered in geometry, so for centuries people assumed he was Archimedes. Then in 1962 a scholar, Delphine Fitz Darby, argued from the broad grin that he is really Democritus, the Greek thinker known even in antiquity as the philosopher who laughed at human folly. The new name mostly stuck. Whoever he is, the face is built up in thick, gritty strokes you can almost feel, the crow's feet cut deep around the eyes from what looks like a permanent grin.