Portraiture

I

Introduction

Portraiture, form of representational art focusing on particular individual subjects. For most of the history of art, the main focus of portraiture has been the visual representation of individual people, distinguished by references to character, social position, wealth, or profession. In its broadest definition, portraiture can include representations of animals (favoured pets or prize-winning livestock) or even representations of dwellings. As discussed here, portraiture refers only to images of people.

Often, portraits aim at exact visual likeness. Although the viewer's correct identification of the sitter is of primary importance, exact replication is not always the goal. Artists sometimes intentionally alter their sitter's appearance by embellishing or refining their images to emphasize or minimize particular qualities (physical, psychological, or social) of the individuals portrayed. Viewers sometimes praise most highly those images that seem to look very little like the sitter because they are judged to capture some non-visual quality of the subject. In non-Western portraiture, verisimilitude is emphasized even less.

Portraiture can be done in any medium, including sculpted stone and wood, oil, painted ivory, pastel, encaustic (wax) on wood panel, tempera on parchment, carved cameo, and hammered or poured metal. During some periods, portraits were severe and emphasized authority, and during other periods artists strived for spontaneity and the sensation of life. Portraits can include only the head, or they can depict the shoulders and head, the upper torso, or an entire figure shown either seated or standing. Portraits can show individuals self-consciously posing, embodied in a timeless posture of full frontality, or captured in the midst of work or daily activity.

Portraiture is a specialized sub-group of the whole of art since it has its own standards and criteria. A portrait is judged, in part, on the degree of verisimilitude, noting that perceptions vary and what appears to be a reasonable likeness of an individual to one person may not seem so to another. Beyond physical likeness, however, portraits portray a range of qualities relating to an individual or group of individuals, and are not limited simply to recreating external appearances and situations. Backgrounds, objects located nearby, or mounts for the sitter (thrones or horses, for example) are all interpretative elements. Like any work of art, those portraits that are most appreciated exhibit strong composition, refined handling of the material, and appropriate or interesting use of colour.

The functions of portraiture are wide-ranging and varied. In the Roman world, for example, portraits of the emperor were required to be present in order for court proceedings to take place. Many societies regard portraits as important ways to convey status and acknowledge power and wealth; during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, portraits of donors were included in works of art as a means of verifying patronage, power, and virtue. Many societies have employed portraits as a means of remembering the dead; Egyptian mummy portraits and Roman death masks played important roles within death rituals, most Japanese portrait sculptures commemorate deceased monks, and skulls refashioned so as to appear lifelike are memorial representations of ancestors in Oceania.

II

Ancient Portraiture

The first representations of identifiable individuals date from the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt around 3100 bc. During the Old Kingdom (3100-c. 2500 bc) this type of portraiture flourished, especially in the funerary representations of pharaohs and nobles. Carved from some of the most durable materials known (diorite, slate, granite) and seated in rigid, staring poses, they convey eternal authority, not the changeability of everyday life. During the New Kingdom (c. 1580-1100 bc), more naturalistic portraits were made, particularly during the Amarna period, when the ruler, Akhenaton (c. 1353-1337 bc), introduced a new type to Egyptian portraiture. Members of the royal family have enlarged foreheads and swollen bellies, curvaceous forms that contrast dramatically with the angular severity of their predecessors. Some scholars feel that the first real portraiture, images depicting the unidealized appearances of specific individuals, dates from this period.

The Roman writer Pliny tells us that in a depiction of the Battle of Marathon (490 bc), the painter Panainos, brother of the Greek sculptor Phidias, depicted battle leaders with portrait heads. To this same period belong the earliest examples of Greek portrait busts. Although often vivid and lifelike, they were frequently idealized images of determined, handsome youths. Sculpted busts from the Hellenistic period (300-100 bc) display remarkable naturalism and often express genuine emotion.

The Romans were expert in portraying individuals. Some scholars have argued that it was the practice of making and keeping death masks of ancestors (worn as masks by mourners in the funeral processions) that accounted for the enormous skill with which Roman portraitists captured the individuality of their sitters. Many portrait busts survive, including images of Roman rulers as well as poignant representations of aged citizens. Especially noteworthy are the mummy portraits from Al Fayyūm in Egypt. Painted during the second century ad, they depict intense individuals who stare, wide-eyed, at the viewer. These slightly simplified representations of staring subjects anticipate the severity and frontality of early medieval portraits.

III

Medieval Period

Early Christian art includes sculpted and mosaic portraits. Stone tombs (see sarcophagus) often included depictions of the deceased in a circular frame. Known as imago clipeatae, they derive from the practice of hanging the shield of a fallen soldier from his upright sword as a battlefield tribute. These images tend to be less lifelike and more stylized in their reliance on a standardized vocabulary for the face and the figure, and their proportions are generally squat. Mosaic portraits, such as those in the apse of Justinian's church of San Vitale, Ravenna (526-548) depict stylized frontal images suited to the portrayal of authority. Medieval gospel books included portraits of the authors of the four gospels, shown writing at their desks. Flat and sometimes formulaic, they often conveyed the artist's understanding of the author based on the text he had written. Lavish portraits of noblemen and kings adorn the books they commissioned. Examples survive from the Carolingian period (7th and 8th centuries) through into the Gothic era (13th to the 15th centuries).

IV

Renaissance

The Renaissance marks a watershed in the history of portraiture. Partly because of interest in the natural world and partly because of interest in the Antique, painted and sculpted portraits assumed an important role in Renaissance society. Portrait medals, after the Antique, were popular in Italy, accompanied by the revival of portrait busts. Noteworthy are the medals by the artist Pisanello, the highly naturalistic busts by Antonio Rosellini (1427-1479) and the elegant sculptures by Francesco Laurana (c. 1430-c. 1502). Profile portraits, inspired by ancient medallions, were particularly popular in Italy between 1450 and 1500. Later, profile portraits depicted donors, represented in the paintings and altarpieces they had commissioned. Important portraitists include Botticelli, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci. Perhaps the finest 16th-century portraitist was the Venetian artist Titian, who portrayed many leading figures of his day. Mannerist artists contributed many exceptional portraits by emphasizing material richness and elegantly complex poses (see Mannerism). Agnolo Bronzino and Jacopo da Pontormo were masters of the portrait. One of the best portraitists of 16th-century Italy was Sophonisba Anguissola from Cremona, who infused her single and group portraits with new levels of complexity. Northern artists utilized the profile format far less often, and very seldom after 1420. In the Netherlands, Jan van Eyck was a leading portraitist; his Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife (1434, National Gallery, London) is among his best. Leading German portrait artists were Hans Holbein the Younger and Albrecht Dürer.