Why is portraiture important

That is, many contemporary portraits from all mediums critique and question current issues. Next time you are confronted with a portrait, take a step back. Why is the subject being portrayed in this position, at this exact location, as opposed to any other?

If the figure is abstracted, why? If it has a title, what does it bring out of the image? By doing this, you may be surprised at what you discover. Digital art traces back to the creation of the computer. The truly unique quality of his work, the themes he communicated and his romantic rags to riches story continues to attract the intrigue of art world giants and art lovers across the world. No thank you, maybe later! Yes please. Subject to credit check and approval. Please read full terms here.

It's Grow-vember! Portraiture: more than just a pretty face. The history of portraiture Before the advent of photography, the only way to record the appearance of an individual was through a painted , sculpted or drawn portrait. Secondly I would ask how have the terms of portraiture changed within the modern world? Photography changes both the situation and the position of painted portraits within western society and within the field of circulated imagery.

From there exists a means of making life-like and -although not initially instant - telling records of a specific occasion. Time is captured in quite a new way By the s shorter exposures were possible with the development of gelatin film stock, and from this comes the creation of a 'snapshot' with everything that implies in the fleeting expression of un-posed subjects and a cropped or foreshortened image.

In this new modern world, the photograph might be seen to displace the painted portrait, as the new photographic print does its mimetic work better. Other commentators have emphasised the psychological explorations within early 20th century society, as exemplified by Ibsen's plays or Sigmund Freud's writings. This new search for the interior self might make exterior depiction seem less important.

Another view puts greater stress on the more anonymous position of the individual within an increasingly mechanised world an individual is simply less relevant in a new mass society. Still another sees the clashes between proletariat and bourgeois power, between unions and government, and between men and women, as the defining characteristics of early 20th century life. Comparing paintings and photographs of famous figures of the 20th century - whether Winston Churchill or Margaret Thatcher - we are not surprised that the photograph might in some instances convey rather better the character and power of the subject against the equivalent painted portrait.

But my proposition here is not that photography has displaced painted portraiture, but that it has changed the encounter between subject and artist, and altered part of the context in which painted portraits are created.

Thirdly I would then ask what other forms of portraiture have become effective in the contemporary world? Photography has affected the whole arena of portraiture: the character and the context. It has also developed and spawned new media, digital photographs and video images being one arena. There are new digital opportunities and the commissioned portrait of David Beckham by Sam Taylor-Wood is the perfect example of a new kind of portrait.

So why do painted portraits still matter today? Do we now have a greater or different public for portraiture? Are the characteristics of authority and authenticity still relevant or true? The fast changing landscape of surveillance and the globalisation of digital imagery calls for the counterpoint of intense, 'local' imagery contained within a painting.

The possibilities of allegory and complex meaning are distinct: the symbolic realm can come to the fore. Portrait of Charlotte Duchesne Philippe de Champaigne. Herman Doomer ca. Self-Portrait Rembrandt Rembrandt van Rijn.

Jean Sorabella Independent Scholar August Citation Sorabella, Jean. Cambridge, Mass. Pope-Hennessy, John. The Portrait in the Renaissance. New York: Pantheon, West, Shearer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Balkan Peninsula, — A. Central Europe including Germany , — A.

Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, — A. Florence and Central Italy, — A. France, — A.