A portrait
is a painting, photograph, or other artistic representation of a
person. Portraits are often simple head shots or mug shots and are
not usually overly elaborate. The intent is to show the basic
appearance of the person, and occasionally some artistic insight
into his or her personality.
The art of the portrait flourished in Roman sculptures, where
sitters demanded realistic portraits, even unflattering ones. During
the 4th century, the portrait began to retreat in favor of an
idealized symbol of what that person looked like. (Compare the
portraits of Roman Emperors Constantine I and Theodosius I at their
entries.) In Europe true portraits of the outward appearance of
individuals re-emerged in the late Middle Ages, in Burgundy and
France.
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Self-portrait by Nicholas Hilliard, 1575, one of the earliest known.
One of best-known portraits in the Western world is Leonardo da
Vinci's painting titled Mona Lisa, which is a painting of an
unidentified woman. Some of the earliest portraits of people who were not kings or emperors, are the funeral portraits that survived in the dry climate of Egypt's Fayum district (illustration, right). These are the only paintings of the Roman period that have survived, aside from frescos. When the artist creates a portrait of himself, it is called a self-portrait. The first known in paint was |
by the French artist
Jean Fouquet in c. 1450,[1] but if the definition is extended the
first was by the Egyptian Pharoah Akhenaten's sculptor Bak, who
carved a representation of himself and his wife Taheri c. 1365 BC.
However, it seems likely that self-portraits go back to the earliest
representational art.
Portrait photography is a
popular commercial industry all over the world. Many people enjoy
having professionally made family portraits to hang in their house,
or special portraits to commemorate certain events, such as
graduations or weddings.
Since the dawn of photography people have made portraits. The
popularity of the daguerreotype in the middle of the 19th century
was due in large part to the demand for inexpensive portraiture.
Studios sprang up in cities around the world, some cranking out more
than 500 plates a day. The style of these early works reflected the
technical challenges associated with 30-second exposure times and
the painterly aesthetic of the time. Subjects were generally seated
against plain backgrounds and lit with the soft light of an overhead
window and whatever else could be reflected with mirrors.
Self-portrait by Vincent Van Gogh.As photographic techniques
developed, an intrepid group of photographers took their talents out
of the studio and onto battlefields, across oceans and into remote
wilderness. William Shew's Daguerreotype Saloon, Roger Fenton's
Photographic Van and Mathew Brady's What-is-it? wagon set the
standards for making portraits and other photographs in the field.
Photographic portrait by Yousuf Karsh of Albert Einstein. 1948.
Gelatin silver print.In politics, portraits of the leader are often
used as a symbol of the state. In most countries it is common
protocol for a portrait of the head of state to appear in important
government buildings. Excessive use of a leader's portrait can be
indicative of a personality cult.
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