Portraiture

V

Baroque and Rococo

During the Baroque and Rococo periods, in the 17th and 18th centuries, portraits became even more important. In a society dominated increasingly by secular leaders in powerful courts, images of opulently attired figures beside symbols of temporal power and wealth were effective in affirming individuals' authority. Antony Van Dyck and Peter Paul Rubens excelled in this genre. At the same time, increased emphasis on understanding human feelings resulted in artists studying the physiognomy of emotion, and artists such as Bernini and Rembrandt explored the human face in its many expressive configurations. The Carracci Academy in late 16th-century Bologna is credited with having produced the first caricatures. Group portraits were produced in greater numbers during the Baroque period, particularly in Dutch art. Frans Hals used dashing lines of vivid colour to enliven these assemblages, and Rembrandt experimented, most notably in his famous Night Watch (1642), with introducing references to time and history into the group portrait. Bernini's bust of Scipione Borghese (1632) captured the sitter in mid-conversation and is considered a benchmark of Baroque portraiture.

Rococo artists excelled in the refined portrait, where details of dress and texture increased their efficacy as testaments to worldly wealth. François Boucher and Hyacinthe Rigaud proved to be remarkable chroniclers of opulence, as were Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds. In the 18th-century, women painters were particularly important in the field of portraiture. Notable were Marie-Louise Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Rosalba Carriera, and Angelica Kauffman.

VI

Neo-Classicism, Romanticism, Realism

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Neo-Classical artists depicted sitters attired in the latest fashion derived from Antique dress, with great clarity of light that defined texture and the simple roundness of faces and limbs. Jacques Louis David, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, and Antonio Canova were leaders in this field. Romantic artists preferred exciting renderings of inspired leaders and agitated citizens painted with lively brushstrokes and dramatic, sometimes moody, lighting. Eugène Delacroix and Théodore Géricault produced particularly fine works, most noteworthy being Géricault's series of portraits of mentally-disturbed patients. Francisco Goya made some of the most searching and provocative images of the period, including his Naked Maja (1800), which is believed to be a portrait. Realist artists such as Gustave Courbet painted portraits and Honoré Daumier produced many caricatures of his contempories, while the later artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec chronicled some of the more famous dancers in Parisian theatre. Édouard Manet, whose work hovers between Realism and Impressionism, was an outstanding portraitist.

VII

Impressionism and Post-Impressionism

The Impressionists, whose models were mostly family and friends, painted intimate groups and single figures outdoors or in light-filled interiors. Monet, Degas, and Renoir painted some of the most popular images of individual sitters. Noted for their shimmering surfaces and rich dabs of paint, these portraits are often disarmingly intimate and very appealing. The American artist Mary Cassatt, who worked in France, was noted for her engaging portraits of mothers and children. Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh made revealing portraits of the people they knew, but are best known for their powerful self-portraits.

VIII

Twentieth-Century and Contemporary Art

Early 20th-century artists expanded the portraiture repertoire. Henri Matisse produced powerful portraits using non-naturalistic, even garish colours for skin tones (see Fauvism). Pablo Picasso made many portraits, including several Cubist portraits where the sitter is barely recognizable (see Cubism). Expressionist painters provided some of the most haunting and compelling psychological studies ever produced. German artists such as Otto Dix and Max Beckmann, and the Austrian Oskar Kokoschka, are notable examples. Portrait-painting declined at mid-century, undoubtedly related to the increasing interest in abstraction and non-figural art. More recently, however, portraiture has undergone a revival. English artists such as Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon have produced powerful paintings where the application of thick paint (impasto) underscores the force of the sitter's personality. Contemporary American artists such as Chuck Close have made the human face a focal point of their work.

IX

Photographic Portraits

The development of photography changed the way in which portraiture was used. Early photographic portraits were stilted and formal, requiring long, laborious sittings, but as the medium developed it became a new way to expand the portrait. Julia Margaret Cameron was a master of the evocative Victorian portrait, and Mathew Brady chronicled the daily life of soldiers during the American Civil War. In the 20th century, Dorothea Lange maximized the photograph's power to portray real people in unadorned settings. Alfred Stieglitz was a major figure in early 20th-century photography; among his best-known portraits are those of his wife, the painter Georgia O'Keefe. Diane Arbus specialized in the the bizarre, chronicling her subjects in an honest, straightforward manner. Cindy Sherman has expanded the portrait genre by using it to evoke new roles and personalities through images of herself.