Thoughts on Portrait Painting: Out of Style but Not Forgotten

Not many people, other than celebrities, judges, and CEO's, think about having their portraits painted these days. Yet, in past centuries portraiture was fashionable, and outstanding artists specialized in the genre. Today, most folks are happy with family snapshots and wedding photography. But without the care and safeguarding of delicate drawings and detailed oil paintings, the likenesses of many famous, infamous, and ordinary personages from bygone eras would be lost to history, sensibility, and imagination.

Today, let's reconsider some great portraits from the more recent and the distant past. Leonardo's Mona Lisa, also called La Gioconda and currently housed at the Louvre, depicts a long-haired young woman with a gentle smile and comfortably clasped hands. Visitors from around the world flock to view this mesmerizing work, each viewer privately attempting to interpret the sitter's subtle expression. Equally fascinating to many are any of Rembrandt's many self-portraits, some in elaborate costumes and others experimenting with unusual lighting and contrasts. Examples can be found in many museums, from the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., to the Frick Collection in New York, to the Uffizi in Florence, to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The emotional weight of these works is stunning, apparent in reproduction but obviously overwhelming in person.

More austere are Velazquez' large-scale, full-length portraits of Spain's Philip IV. These images are all the more interesting for being so unflattering: fully emphasizing the large nose, cold eyes, sensuous mouth, and very soft hands. The Metropolitan Museum in New York owns one, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts has a similar version, and the Prado boasts at least two, including one with the young king posing as a hunter, rifle in hand and dog by his side. In London's National Gallery, there is another, smaller, bust-length portrait of Philip IV, showing the monarch in his later years, still bearing cold eyes and sensuous mouth but also exhibiting signs of world-weariness. The technique in this last one is loose and assured, as is often the case with master artists in their prime.

For humbler subjects, an intriguing comparison may be made between Velazquez' painting titled The Needlewoman, dated about 1640-1650 and in the collection of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., and Vermeer's lovely The Lacemaker, dated about twenty years or so later and owned by the Louvre. Both pictured women are looking down at their hands, apparently in heavy concentration on the tasks. The foreshortening of the faces is similar, with the eyelids appearing closed and the light soft on the foreheads and noses. The sense of quietness is palpable in each case. The women, though physically plain, are yet beautiful to the viewer, and memorable, even majestic, in their simplicity.

Recent contemporary American portrait painting of note includes works by Andy Warhol, Chuck Close, and Alex Katz. Warhol's silkscreen variations showing the faces of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor are recognizable, holding a nearly iconic status. Close's large-scale canvases with grid or dot patterns seem hyper-realistic when viewed from a set distance. Katz's minimalist style is appealingly structured and smoothly illustrational. Interesting as these works are, it is unlikely that one of these artists or, for that matter, any of the many other prominent painters exhibiting in big-city galleries, would have been given a commission for a Presidential portrait. Gilbert Stuart's painting of George Washington is still the gold-standard for that rarefied circle.

This brief discussion of portrait painting merely hints at the possibilities of this topic. For additional artists, consider Modigliani, he of the elongated faces and simple features, or Picasso, he of the startling placement of eyes and wild colors, or Renoir and Cassatt, with their tender treatments of children. Artists appreciate that faces and figures have considerable influence on any composition. Portrait painting may not be as popular today as in the past, but it is a genre hardly likely to disappear completely.

Mona Lisa at the Louvre (English language page)
Rembrandt self-portrait at the Frick
Velazquez' portrait of Philip IV at the Metropolitan Museum, New York
Gilbert Stuart's George Washington portrait at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery