The history of the portrait in painting

The development of the portrait genre is influenced by two trends: the development of ideas about the significance of the human personality, the development of the laws of painting, perspectives, the invention of colors, etc.

Ancient portrait.

The oldest known attempt to portray a human face is 27 thousand years old. It is found in the cave Villoner. "Portrait" is made with chalk. The horizontal lines of the eyes and the mouth are drawn, and a vertical line indicating the nose.

Early samples of the easel portrait - Roman portraits, performing the function of funerary masks - Fayum portraits. They were created from nature, carrying in themselves a pronounced similarity with a particular person, and in later models - specific spirituality.

The masters of the Byzantine and Western Roman empires portray their models in general, the portraits of various emperors are almost indistinguishable.

Portraits are often found in antique coins and medals.

Portrait of the Middle Ages.

During the Middle Ages, the artist, limited to strict church canons, rarely turned to a portrait.

Although, at the same time, artists are beginning to give a little holy features of the faces of real people.

One of the first such works in which the beginning of the development of a realistic portrait can be seen is the portrait of Enrico Scrovegni by Giotto on the walls of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, 1304-1306.

Giotto

The portrait appears in a miniature book, especially in the portraits of customers who brought books.

Begins to develop and self-portrait.

Hildegarde Bingen

Little by little, the portrait begins to penetrate easel painting. One of the first examples of the easel portrait of this period is the "Portrait of John the Good" (c. 1349).

"Portrait of John the Good"

In the territories of the East.

Chinese portrait dates back to 1000 BC. er He has the features of brightly individualized secular portraits.

Unknown artist. "Portrait of a Buddhist Monk Uchzhun Shifan"

The portraits of the Japanese are also psychological. 

"Portrait of Minamoto but Yoritomo"

In Peruvian culture of the Moika Indians ( 1st-8th centuries ) there were portraits showing the anatomical features of people, their social status.

Portrait of 14-15 centuries.

In the era of rebirth, man began to be perceived as the center of the world, the influence of religion weakened. Great value acquired external beauty, the harmony between a strong spirit and body.

The first portraits had the influence of antique coins and medals, and therefore often depict the model in profile. Time passed before the faces in the portraits began to be depicted in a face or three-quarters.

Another important component of portrait development is the emergence of an oil painting technique that allowed the letter to become more subtle and psychological.

Sometimes the artist idealized the model, but at the same time they certainly tried to comprehend its essence. Portrayed were often depicted not on a conditional background in the interior or landscape, often alongside fictional (mythological and gospel) characters.

Piero della Francesca, "Portrait of the Duke Federigo Montefeltro"

The means of artistic expression are updated (aerial perspective by Leonardo da Vinci, Titian's coloristic discoveries).

Titian, "Isabella of Portugal, mother of Philip I"

Leonardo Da Vinci, Mona Lisa

By the middle of the 15th century, the portrayed person became an integral part of the universe in his paintings - for this, detailed prescription of the environment around him, the slightest wrinkles on his face were used. 

Jan van Eyck

Robert Kampen. "Portrait of a Fat Man"

Albrecht D?rer, Self-Portrait

Hans Holbein the Younger

16th century portrait.

It shows the anxiety and drama of the era. Mannerism.

El Greco. "Portrait of an Elderly Caballero"

 

Portrait of the 17th century.

In the 17th century, portraits of people engaged in mundane affairs appear. Realism.

Rembrandt "Anatomy lesson of Dr. Tulpa"

Appears a class portrait.

Diego Velazquez. "Portrait of the Dwarf Don Sebastien Morra"

Franz Hals. "Gypsy"

Increased interest in self-comprehension contributes to the development of self-portrait.

Rembrandt, "Self-Portrait"

The aristocratic portrait continues to evolve.

Anthony van Dyck. "Equestrian Portrait of Charles I" 

Diego Velazquez

The composition of many portraits of this period is based on movement, with the expressiveness of the gesture of the model being of great importance. Baroque.

Rembrandt, "Night Watch"

At the same time, negative trends in the development of the portrait genre are outlined. The customer requires flattery from the artist. In the works appears sugary sentimentality, cold theatricality, idealization. Classicism.

Pierre Minyar

 

18th century portrait.

France sets the tone for the whole world; ceremonial court portraits with "doll faces" are now everywhere. Rococo.

Nattier. "Portrait of the Duchess of Orleans in the image of Hebe"

But towards the end of the 18th century, a social portrait appears in the Enlightenment. Pastels are developing.

Hogarth

Hogarth

Jean-Baptiste Chardin. "Self-portrait", pastel.

Francisco Goya

The Russian empire declares itself in world art by first-class painters - this is Levitsky, Borovikovsky. In their works, social characteristics, psychological analysis, rich internal emotions are manifested.

Levitsky

Borovikovsky. "Catherine II on a walk in Tsarskoselsky Park"

In the second half of the 18th century, a portrait made by cheaper means (engraving, watercolor, pencil) became widespread. In addition, the portrait miniature flourishes.

Bacchante. Miniature portrait by Jacques Augustine, 1799. Bone, watercolor, gouache

This situation with a private portrait as a souvenir is preserved until the 1850s, when a photograph appears accessible to virtually all segments of society.

19th century portrait.

The development of the portrait in the 19th century was predetermined by the Great French Revolution. Romanticism.

David. "Napoleon on the Saint-Bernard Pass"

The portrait of the early 19th century is often stern and cold.

Jacques-Louis, "The Dutch Envoy in Paris, Jacobus Blauw"

By the middle of the century, a new standard of the ceremonial custom portrait is being formed.

Winterhalter

From the middle of the 19th century, a portrait of realism appears. 

Ivan Kramskoy. "Self-portrait"

Impressionism.

The artists in the portrait refused the credibility of the photograph left (which began to develop widely), focused on the inconstancy of man and the environment.

Edouard Manet, "The Woman in Front of the Mirror"

Pierre Agyst Renoir, "Dance in Bougival"

There are monumental images.

Paul Cezanne. "Portrait of Madame Cezanne"

Van Gogh. "Portrait of Dr. Ray" 

The portrait clearly reflects the problems of the moral and spiritual life of modern man. Goya, who created the group "Portrait of the Family of Charles IV", was a work ordered as a ceremonial portrait, and as a result reflected the outrage of the ruling dynasty.

Goya, "Portrait of the Family of Charles IV"

There is also a satirical portrait.

Honore Daumier

The modernist style gives the portrait a laconic sharpening, sometimes endowing the model with features of the grotesque.

Toulouse-Lautrec, "La Gulay with two friends in Moulin Rouge"

Alphonse Mucha

Salon parade portrait flourishes. The ease of a brush and a certain superficiality is peculiar to the works of artists of this genre.

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