Portraiture

History of Representing People in Art

The first humans to be represented in art as the central subject of a work are pregnant women, or fertility Goddesses; most notably, the Venus of Willendorf.

Frontalism, the technique utilized by Egyptian painters who rendered human subjects, stressed the importance of the Pharaoh’s profile . In frontalism, the subject’s body faces forward, but his head is turned to the side, with the eye on the viewer’s side being fully visible. This lack of concern forperspective and proportionin Ancient Egyptian art highlights anotherimportant aspect of pre-classical portraiture,that the subject is moreimportant than the style.

Art in Medieval Civilizations also utilized caricature and portraiture to recreate the likeness of Deities and spirits. Focus on the natural, a development that Northern Renaissance painters would imitate centuries later.

Although oils granted renaissance artists a medium with which color and light could be expressed, the development of form and perspective were borne from classical study. The Florentine Renaissance housed the most famous artists and artistic works in all human history.

Jan SteenHollandThe Girl with the Pearl Earring

RembrandtHollandSelf-Portrait

Contrasts in light flourished in Baroque art, and shadows became nearly as important to the paintings as the subjects themselves.

In Colonial America, therefore, portraiture became associated with luxury and monarchism, something to be feared and distrusted by a democratic society.

Following soon after, the invention of the camera spurred an outright revolution in the way that portraiture, and art as a whole, was conceived by the world.

Naturalism enjoyed renewed popularity in the poems and literature of the Romantics, which expressed a reverence for nature and an appreciation of her many gifts.

Van Gogh is often credited with popularizing the art of self-portraiture

French impressionists went a step further in painting only the effects of light. The features of human forms and the topography of landscapes were only secondary to the vivid colors and impressions of light created by the style of painting utilized by the Impressionists.

Pablo Picasso, the Spanish Cubist, is perhaps the most influential and well-known artist of the twentieth century, and any work of art with his name on it is said to be worth more than its weight in gold.

Picasso SpainSelf-Portrait

A key aspect of Pop art is self-reference, drawing upon the media commons to construct a simulacrum of our collective imagination, using a composite of images that we see everyday.