Portraits
•A portrait could be described as a likeness of an individual but you will see from the following art works that this is not always the case.
•Portraits done in the past often were more concerned with showing greatness, wealth or strength as kings, emperors, popes and powerful leaders paid artists to sculpt, draw or paint them so that the people who served them could idealise them. In other words, artists were employed to make them look better than they really looked. Look at Portrait of Pope Innocent X, 1650 by Diego Velazquez, Louis XIV in Royal Costume, 1701 by Hyacinthe Rigaud and Louis-Francois Bertin, 1833 by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
•After the camera was invented in the 1800s, and people could have a photo taken of themselves that showed their exact likeness, artists were free to create portraits that, while not always looking like the person, expressed their essence, their expressions, mood or character types. Look at the work Portrait of Gertrude Stein, 1906 by Pablo Picasso, Miss Amelia van Buren, c.1891 by Thomas Eakins, The Painter’s Mother Resting III, 1977 by Lucien Freud and Self Portrait in Tuxedo, 1927 by Max Beckman.
•Artists were also able to exaggerate or distort features of the person in their painting to bring out a different kind of likeness. Look at the work Chaim Soutine, 1917 by Italian artist Amadeo Modigliani, Portrait of an Artist (Joshua Smith), 1943 by William Dobell, Joseph de Montesquiou-Fezensac,1911 by Oskar Kokoschka as well as portraits by British artist Francis Bacon and Spanish artist Pablo Picasso.
•Do you know what is considered to be the most famous portrait in the world?
What does each style say about the person in the artwork? CLICK on the images below to find out more!
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