One of the main characteristics of portraiture is that its function is the representation of an individual's appearance and personality. One of the biggest influences of conceptual art movement on contemporary art in general is the critique towards pure representation. Not even symbolism can respond to these demands. However, there are so many examples of portrait artists who perfectly resolve these issues. Let us just recall the amazing art of Kehinde Wiley whose portraits are characterized by deep political and social expressions.
With technological development, with evolution of contemporary photography and the expansion of social media, one of the main functions of the portrait — producing a likeness — is rendered irrelevant because we really don't need an artist to tell us what somebody looks like. Elizabeth Peyton or even Andy Warhol. We can just google it now, and see an image of a celebrity. We also have countless photograph contests such as World Press Photo Contest or URBAN international street photo contest with amazing portraits often made by amateurs.
We are surrounded by selfies, photographs on social media and Internet — and all of them being recognized as portraiture. In Reader Questions. Oil on canvas. Royal Collection. And even in museums today, some which are dedicated to portraits like the National Portrait Gallery in London? Why are portraits important? Within European art history, portraits are one of the genres within the hierarchy of genres , and elsewhere, portraits have more or less always existed as representations of people from real life.
Museo del Prado. Francisco Goya was first court painter, the highest position available for Spanish painters at the time. Official court painters were paid to regularly create paintings, usually portraits, for the royal family, often with a fixed salary. Art practice as we often understand it today—that is, artists making art based on what they are inspired by or what they want to explore—is a pretty new concept. For much of history, artworks were mostly produced based on commissions.
This, of course, varies depending on time periods and cultures, but this was definitely the case in the European tradition, from which the formalised portraiture genre sprang. It makes sense why portraits would be such a popular subject for patrons to commission. Similar to how we have family photos on our walls today, having portraits of you and your family was a way of representing and immortalising yourself before photography was invented.
Oil on panel. In the above example by Albrecht Altdorfer c. Initially, mostly wealthy and powerful patrons would commission these portraits, but over time, it became more and more common for middle-class people to commission portraits as well.
Eventually, commissioned portraits became rarer, and artists started painting their friends, family, and those around them instead. Kitagawa Utamaro, Three Beauties , c. Woodblock print. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The above was a portrait of three famous beauties in s Edo, each identified with a family crest.
Curator David Brown discussesthe self-portrait J. Turner painted as a young artist marking an important moment in his career. Stephen Daniels.
Jean-Christophe Ammann. Court painters were artists employed by royal courts to paint portraits of the royal family and their courtiers. Grand manner is an English term used widely from the eighteenth century to describe what was considered to be the ….
A conversation piece is an informal group portrait popular in the eighteenth century, small in scale and showing people — …. Identity politics is the term used to describe an anti-authoritarian political and cultural movement that gained prominence in the USA ….
Witty, satirical, subversive and hugely talented, William Hogarth remains one of the most fascinating and innovative artists from the eighteenth …. Main menu additional Become a Member Shop. Art Term Portrait A portrait is a representation of a particular person. Twitter Facebook Email Pinterest. Artists working with portraiture Left Right.
Akram Zaatari born Lucian Freud — Sorry, no image available. August Sander — Gwen John — Forgotten Faces Caroline Corbeau-Parsons Forgotten Faces comprises seventeen portraits or figure paintings and three sculptures ranging between — a year before the foundation ….
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