History of Portraiture

History of Portraiture

Portraiture is a visual representation of an individual people,

distinguished by references to the subject's character, social

position, wealth, or profession.

Portraitists often strive for exact visual likenesses. However,

although the viewer's correct identification of the sitter is of

primary importance, exact replication is not always the goal. Artists

may intentionally alter the appearance of their subjects by

embellishing or refining their images to emphasize or minimize

particular qualities (physical, psychological, or social) of the

subject. Viewers sometimes praise most highly those images that seem

to look very little like the sitter because these images are judged to

capture some non-visual quality of the subject. In non-Western

societies portraiture is less likely to emphasize visual likeness than

in Western cultures.

Portraits can be executed 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

(plus, many more).

Portraits can include only the head of the subject, or they can depict

the shoulders and head, the upper torso, or an entire figure shown

either seated or standing. Portraits can show individuals either

self-consciously posing in ways that convey a sense of timelessness or

captured in the midst of work or daily activity. During some

historical periods, portraits were severe and emphasized authority,

and during other periods artists worked to communicate spontaneity and

the sensation of life.

The history of portraiture spans most of the history of Weste...

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...roducing time and historical references

into the group portrait, most notably in his famous Night Watch

(1642).

Other portraiture in brief:

Death masks- used to preserve images by pressing matter such as thin

gold onto the face, then lifting appropriately, so preserving the

image. Romans had very realistic death masks, kept on mantelpieces or

cupboards; they were made in order to honour ancestors and to place

the living in context with the deceased; this meant that there could

be a link between spirit, and the owner themselves.

The Etruscan vase- was used for keeping ashes after death, wit the

portrait of the person with holes in it, and these holes were then in

turn used to attach an actual realistic ‘skin’ to. They were often

made of wood and they also carried the ashes and skull of the dead

person.