Denis Mikhailovsky
Painting.
Portrait
Portrait
Portrait. A depiction or description (in literature) of a person or group of people. In the arts, the portrait is one of the principal
genres of painting, sculpture, graphics, and photography. The genre is based on the commemorative principle, that is, the
perpetuation of a person by means of a visual representation. The resemblance of the depiction to the sitter, a most
important criterion of portraiture.
Many different types of portraits have developed. They vary in format and mode of execution. There are studio portraits,
which include easel paintings, busts, and graphic sheets, and monumental portraits, which include sculptural monuments,
frescoes, and mosaics. Portraits may be formal or informal, half-length or full-length, and en face or in profile. In different
eras, portraits on medals and coins (medallion art), on gems (glyptic), and in miniature have enjoyed popularity. There are
individual, double, and group portraits. A special type of portrait is the self-portrait.
The boundaries of portraiture are very changeable, and one work of art may combine portraiture with elements of other
genres. For example, the subject may be depicted in a meaningful relationship with nature, architecture, and other people.
The symbolic portrait—the representation of a collective image—is structurally close to portraiture. When portraiture is
combined with genre or historical art, the model is often brought into interaction with imaginary figures.
Portraiture can reflect high spiritual and moral human qualities. It is also capable of truthfully and, sometimes, mercilessly
exposing the subject’s negative qualities. This is particularly common in caricatures and satirical portraits. On the whole,
portraiture is capable both of conveying the distinctive traits of a given person and of strongly reflecting important social
phenomena in the complex interweaving of their contradictions.
The origins of portraiture go back to early antiquity. The first significant examples are encountered in ancient Eastern,
particularly Egyptian, sculpture. In classical Greece, generalized, idealized sculptures of poets, philosophers, and social
figures were produced. Sculptural portraiture flourished in ancient Roman art, where its development was linked with an
increased interest in the individual man and an expansion of the range of portrait subjects. The medieval artist, limited by
strict church canons, turned to portraiture somewhat infrequently. To his understanding, individualism was subordinated to
religious collectivism. In many cases, medieval portraiture constitutes an integral part of church architecture. Principally
depicted were such prominent people as rulers and their families, court favorites, and donors.
Portraiture in painting, sculpture, and graphic art flourished during the Renaissance, developing most fully in the art of
Italy. Renaissance anthropocentrism is reflected most clearly in the portraiture of the masters of the High Renaissance.
Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Giorgione, Titian, and Tintoretto added even more depth to the portrait, endowing it with force
of intellect and a sense of personal freedom and inner harmony. They introduced new means of artistic expression, for
example, the aerial perspective of da Vinci and the coloristic discoveries of Titian.
In the art of mannerism, which was popular in the 16th century, portraiture lost its Renaissance clarity. Features appeared
that reflected a turbulent perception of the contradictions of the day. Compositional organization changed, and there were
strong emotional overtones. This is evident, in varying degrees, in portraits by the Italian masters Pontormo and Bronzino
and the Spanish painter El Greco.
An enormous achievement of 17th-century portraiture was its manifest democratization, which received fullest expression
in Holland. The portrayal of people of different social strata and national groups characterize the many true-to-life portraits
by Rembrandt, which are distinguished by the greatest love for mankind and a grasp of the innermost depths of human life
and moral beauty. Such subjects are also present in the sharply realistic portraits of F. Hals, who vividly revealed the
changeability of the sitter’s mood.
Different facets of human nature emerge in portraits by the Spaniard D. Velazquez, which reflect the manysidedness and
contradictoriness of reality. Hals and Velazquez created symbolic portraits based on representatives of the common
people, revealing the dignity, richness, and complexity of the people’s inner world.The issues of revolution and liberation
pervaded the extremely realistic portraits by the Spanish painter F. Goya, which initiated a critical trend in the portrait
genre. Goya’s passionate informal portraits and self-portraits are essentially romantic.
Romantic tendencies developed further in the first half of the 19th century, with portraits by the painters T. Gericault and E.
Delacroix and the sculptor F. Rude of France; the painters O. A. Kiprenskii, K. P. Briullov, and (to some extent) V. A.
Tropinin of Russia; and P. O. Runge in Germany. At the same time, neoclassical traditions continued to develop, filled with
new content taken from life (represented by the painter J. A. D. Ingres in France). The first significant examples of satirical
portraiture in graphic art and sculpture in the 19th century were produced by H. Daumier.
The great achievements in late 19th-century Russian portraiture were associated with the intensification of democratic
trends in Russian life. The peredvizhniki (“wanderers”—a progressive art movement), whose members included V. G.
Perov, N. N. Ge, I. N. Kramskoi, N. A. Iaroshenko, and I. E. Repin, created a virtual gallery of portraits of outstanding
national cultural figures. The portraits of peasants by Perov, Kramskoi, and Repin reflect the concern of democratic artists
to represent the common man as significant and having a rich inner life
