What is a Portrait? Readings so far...

 

Cummings, L (2010). A Face to the World. London: HarperPress.

Explores the great artists from the Renaissance onwards and their contribution and motivation to self portraiture. Cummings defines a portrait as being centred on the face however, she accurately points out, faces can be deceiving; faces do not always fit - we cannot define a person by their face. Essentially, we need more. We need that revelation that is a certain kind of truth, deep and incontrovertible. We need, when we look at a portrait, to see the truth that is within, somehow defining the art that is without.

 

 

Freeland, C (2010) Portraits and Persons. Oxford University Press.

Freeland defines a portrait as “a representation or depiction of a living being as a unique individual possessing

1. A recognisable physical body along with

2. An inner life. That is, some sort of character and/or psychological or mental states” (2010, pg 5)

 

She lists the functions of a portrait, one or more of which she believes, are essential for a portrait. To provide a

1. Likeness

2. Psychological characterisations

3. Proofs of presence or to give the viewer a sense of ‘contact’

4. Manifestations of a person’s ‘essence’ or ‘air’

 

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Gage, J (1997) Photographic Likeness in Woodall, J. (ed) Portraiture: facing the subject. (pp 119-130) Manchester University Press

Gage discusses the centrality or not, and history of the concept of ‘likeness’ in portraiture. J.C. Lavater (1770) in his Essays in Physiognomy postulates that the external features of a face, if drawn accurately enough in a portrait, were a sign to the true identity of the subject. Galton in the 1870s, the father of eugenics, took this idea and experimented with composite portraits to try to identify and pinpoint which facial characteristics were the most significant and hence create faces with ‘ideal’ characteristics. They were remarkably unsuccessful in creating satisfying portraits. It suggests that we frame our ideas of ‘likeness’ to an individual on other considerations other than accurate mechanical reproductions of likeness. Even in earlier times, Gainsborough wrote in a letter to the Earl of Dartmouth in 1770

“Had a picture voice, action etc, to make itself known as Actors have upon the stage, no disguise would be sufficient to conceal a person: but only a face confined to one view and not a muscle to move to say ‘Here I am’ falls very hard upon the poor painter who perhaps is not within a mile of the truth in painting the Face only” Woodall, M. (1963) Letters of Thomas Gainsborough (pp 51-3) London (quoted on page 122)

Gage goes on to discuss Chuck Close who, amongst other, took great advantage of the photograph’s ability to create extreme close up; gone was the reluctance to look the sitter in the eye or to cover all blemishes in an effort to create the virtuous and beautiful idealised likeness. But it seems to me, his portraits, while showing perfect ‘likeness’ show only that, nothing more. The surface features throw little light on identity.  It is the expressions that show likeness; that turn a mere effigy or wax work face into a true portrait

 

 

 

Kemp, S (2004). Future Face: Image, Identity, Innovation. London: Profile Books

A light exploration of portraits with a focus on the face in particular. He offers no specific discussion of the definition of portraits. The only reference is a quote from Francis Bacon “if you are doing a portrait you have to record a face. But with their face you have to try to tap the energy that emanates from them” (pg 50) She writes of expression as revealed by Darwin; the way we ‘read’ a face; the effects of facial disfigurement on a person’s self definition; phrenology; mug shots; plastic surgery; digital facial recognition; avatars and robotic faces; all to argue that a satisfying portrait is centred on the face and artists, in whatever form, will contrive to render it.

 

Klein, J. (2007). The Mask as Image and Strategy in Alarco, P. & Warner, M. The Mirror and the Mask: Portraiture in the Age of Picasso. Yale University Press in association with Kimbrell Art Musiem, The Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, The Foundation Caja Madrid

Maintains that 20th Century artists used the primitive African masks as a strategy to subvert the need of traditional portraits to create a likeness. A mask was seemingly the opposite of what was expected and so acted as a critique enabling the continuation and flowering of the outmoded tradition of portraiture.

The use of the mask was tied to the more modern idea that identity itself was not static; rather it was indefinable and performative. The mask became a way to overthrow and critique the aspiration that a portrait could ‘capture’ an identity or a true self. While the Expressionists such as Beckman, Kokoshka Scheile attempted to reveal the psychological depth of a sitter, they often used the mask as part of their technique even if it was a passive expression in  the subject.

His contention is that portraiture was and could have easily become a fatal victim to abstraction of the 20th Century, however the mask of the early modernists came to its rescue and became the voice to post modern ideas of identity - it was a way of expressing eloquently that a portrait perhaps is all surface with no real substance. From the masks of Picasso and Matisse was a direct line to the portraits of Warhol, Chuck Close, Cindy Sherman that ensured portraiture’s survival into the 21st Century.

 

Pointon, M. (2013) Portrayal and the search for identity. London: Reaktion Books

Pointon begins her book with a broad discussion of portraits – why do we have portraits; what do they do and does a portrait have to look like someone in order to be named a portrait?

 

One of her first contentions is “above all it is the face that is understood to define portraiture” (2013, pg 7) I would add, as she does herself “the question of making a likeness is the beginning and not an end to a work of portraiture” (2013, pg 19)

 

Pointon goes on to discuss the historical definitions of portrayal. She says a portrait historically was defined as “a representation of any human subject, imaginary or actual” or even expanded could be seen to be “any representation of items in the world as seen”. For example one could create a “Portrait of a Lady’ or “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”. The more modern definition, one that has its origins in the Renaissance when portraits were first expected to reveal character and personality as well as status and place within society, is that portraits are the representation of “an individual known to have lived depicted for his or her own sake. Some might add that a portrait should aim to represent body and soul, or physical and mental presence” (2013, pg 48)

 

A good portrait “captures the essence of the sitter by being much more than a likeness. A good portrait is about history, philosophy, milieu” (2013, pg 59).

 

Renaissance portraiture certainly excelled in capturing a sitters social milieu and historical space. One of my favourite portraits from the Renaissance is Holbien’s The Ambassadors. It appears to be a perfect example of likeness (possibly because we have never seen the real subjects) but even more importantly, it reveals their status, their interests and educational specialities and the world at the moment in time in which they inhabited it.

 

Portraits are essentially about the subject in the present moment, but the purpose carries forward to a time when no one knows the subject any longer, no longer knows if it is a true likeness, and the portrait becomes a trace, a remembrance. It perhaps could be said to transform from its original secular purpose of illustrating a person’s likeness, social position and character into something more like a religious icon – the portrait becomes a vehicle for remembering, perhaps idolising. Portraiture thereby transforms itself from inhabiting the world or reality and moves into the spiritual, obtuse realm.

 

If it is true that likeness to the model is central to portraiture, how can the portrait be reconciled with abstraction? And this is where we continue to question whether facial likeness is indeed essential to the portrait. Certainly the semantic/linguistic origins of the word portrait are from the Latin verbs  ‘portraho’ and ‘retraho’ meaning to copy.  I ask does the subject of the copy necessarily have to be the face or can it be another equally important feature of a complex subject. Likeness, after all, is a fairly immeasurable and transient thing…and we need to actually have seen the subject to be able to draw a conclusion as to whether a portrait is a ‘good’ likeness. Often we have never seen the real person. So equally the question arises, can it be a likeness to a subject’s ‘sense of being’ rather than facial features that the artist creates?

 

There is no doubt a portrait is an elusive thing. We are fooled into thinking this image before us is a real likeness – a likeness offered in the here and now that relates to the past and yet we relate to it in the here and now; a likeness that is both corporeal and psychological, and yet we have no way of knowing if this representation is real or unreal because while the data that is offered to us appears to be factual, it is data that we can only relate to in a subjective manner. The elusive twists in the tail that portraits offer us as viewers.

 

Serraller, F.C. The Spirit Behind the Mask in  Alarco, P. & Warner, M. The Mirror and the Mask: Portraiture in the Age of Picasso. Yale University Press in association with Kimbrell Art Musiem, The Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, The Foundation Caja Madrid

This articles looks at how portraits have evolved into the modern age depending on the focus and priorities of the times.  Since the Renaissance when portraits had moved from the basic depiction of the body with little individuating features to fine examples of ‘likeness’ the focus at work has been a dialectic whose extremes were commemoration (where a likeness was required) to display (to show the sitter’s spiritual and material attributes) This dialectic has continued into the modern day.

With abstraction, impressionism, the rise of the technology of reproduction and post modern theories of identity and the science of DNA, the creation of one’s face and body image has become trivialised. After all, a face that can be changed with plastic surgery can’t compete with the inarguable DNA test. No longer does society see our face, our external images, as revealing and 21st Century art must go beyond searching for a means to create a credible ‘likeness’

 

Walker, J (1984) Portraits: 5,000 years. New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc.

A complete overview of the history of portraits from Egyptian 3100 BC to the 21st century. His open and broad definition “so long as a man or woman is…portrayed as a recognisable individual, identifiable or not, I consider his or her likeness a portrait” (pg 7)

 

He sees the changing character of the portrait to be influenced by the times in which the artist lived, the relationship she has with her sitter, the subjects requirements, the artists interpretation of the subject and the skill and techniques she employs.

Egypt 3100-500BC: largely sculptured tomb portraits designed to capture and/or house the Ka or soul of the dead on their return.

Greece 500-75BC: The spirit was seen as ephemeral, air-like, so it was not necessary to offer a recognisable body to return to. Artists and subjects were more interested in an idealised likeness. As in Egyptian times, sculpture dominated.

Early Christian Medieval 250-1400: The pre-eminence of religion. Human figures were minimised so as not to compete with God. The figures had a sense of the divine, their eyes expressed faith and virtue. By 1100 coffin statues or effigies were popular and were more likely to show a near likeness.

Renaissance 1400-1600: An explosion of portraiture with the decline of religious repression and the rise of the individual. Philosophical definitions of the self, from Descarte and his followers, saw the human as being dualistic; body and mind were two distinct elements. The human face was observed minutely, studies in anatomy applied, and the mind or psychology was observed. Da Vinci wanted to capture the “motions of the mind” (pg 86) For Renaissance thinkers the motions of the mind were defined by the four humours that ruled body and temperament. Not psychology as we know it today.  Northern Flemish artists concentrated on minute observation, Italian more outlines, perspective, chiascuro, idealised body form and structure.

Baroque 1600-1700: Rubens, Velaquez, Hals, Rembrandt. There were continuing developments in the decline of religion and the rise of individualism leading to more focus on the internal reality of the subject. Rembrandt in particular, with his self portraits, was able to delve deeply into the flux of the human condition.

Bourgeois/Romantic 1790-1914: Ingres, David, Delacroix, Corot, Manet, Renoir, Degas. French portraiture dominated this era. The prevailing focus was to observe the envelope of the body and face rather than the anatomy as in the Renaissance. It was during this period that we see the start of photography which signalled the decline in the portrait artist both in status and numbers. With less patronage and perfect likenesses being offered easily and more cheaply by the photographer, painters turned increasingly to abstraction to depict the inner psyche of their subjects.

Van Gogh, Gauguin, Whistler, Singer Sargent, Rodin

Modern 1900-1983: Three factors marked a decline in portraiture – photography, abstraction (to distinguish itself from the photograph) and lack of patronage. Freud and new psychoanalytic theories paralleled the rise in’ Viennese Expressionism, as Munch, Kokoscha, Shiele and Beckman painted with an emphasis on psychological states of mind rather than bodily and facial likeness.

 

Warner, M. Portraits About Portraiture in Alarco, P. & Warner, M. The Mirror and the Mask: Portraiture in the Age of Picasso. Yale University Press in association with Kimbrell Art Musiem, The Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, The Foundation Caja Madrid

Warner contends that modernists didn’t give up painting portraits despite the rise of photography and its low status because “it was the most subvertible of the genres” (pg 11)

Modern portraits rejected the Sunday best clothes, the fine stance, the idealised beauty and instead joined the artist in their studios.Portraits became more about the artist than the sitter and it was the fact that they were close to the artist that was the cache and status for the sitter.

 

The Portrait tradition for the modern artist was a theme ripe for subversion.

 

 

Woodall, J (1977)(ed) Introduction in Portraiture: Facing the Subject. Manchester & New York: Manchester University Press (pg 1-25)

 

Woodall outlines, in a slightly haphazard way, several intersecting subjects in her introduction to the book Facing the Subject. She begins with an outline of the history of portraiture as it concerns concepts of identity from the dualism of the Renaissance to post structuralist ideas of the twentieth century. She discusses how these concepts have influenced all aspects of portraiture; the representation of status and the search for ‘likeness’ and its changing relevance.

 

The Renaissance marked the re- birth of portraiture; by the 1500s ‘realistic’ portraits were widespread. This rise was in parallel or because of the equal rise in the individual power and status of the non-noble in the bourgeois. There were already clearly defined ways of portraying status; royalty often full body, brightly coloured emphasising the genitals; scholars with the accoutrements of their learning; clerics in robes and throned,; women – all had distinct styles associated with them.

 

There was an expansion of portrait types and numbers in the 1600s. The 1700s France and England dominated. Portraits were beginning to be seen as lower status art because there was less room for the ‘artist’ to shine. In the 1800s issues of truth and realism came to the fore in portraiture. Black and white were the chosen colours for men though women were still brightly coloured. Seen as more serious. During this time was the rise of physiognomy with Lavater. Photography also influenced the demise of the status of portraits because they became so readily accessible for the poorer classes.

 

Twentieth century Modern Impressionists with abstraction and Cubism began to break down portraiture’s identification with physiognomy and likeness. The long held beliefs that portraiture had to mimic or render a true likeness of the subject in order to depict their identity was breaking down. There were more portraits with family and friends in relaxed settings – the depiction of status was no longer one of wealth rather intimacy with the artist.

 

The Twentieth Century rejected likeness and challenged the belief that likeness to a living person is necessary for the representation of inner identity. Modern ideas of portraiture no longer follow the Aristotelian view that they literally made present again; re-presented the person depicted whether alive or dead. Today, the fixed immovable features of a portrait can seem like a mask frustrating our desire to see the interior identity of a subject.

 

Concepts of identity are inextricably linked to the history of portraiture. Descartes was the first to separate body and mind and thereby create dualism. In the 1850s Marx saw personal identity as linked to history and socio-economic conditions. Freud saw identity as in part housed in the body – the unconscious driving force of a person’s inner identity is repressed sexual instinct. Lacan saw identity as dependent on shared system of signs – language. Darwin saw identity as being wholly a unique impersonal genetic blueprint. Derrida sees identity as being dependent on all things outside the ‘self’. Identity is not a fixed thing but an ongoing process between language between individuals. For portraits, the interplay between viewer, artist and sitter or within the psyche of the artist and sitter all exist within the identity being represented.

 

Van Alphen, E. (1997) The Portrait’s dispersal: concepts of representation and subjectivity in contemporary portraiture in Portraiture: Facing the Subject. Woodall, J (ed) Manchester University Press

Van Alphen offers a succinct and coherent critique of the more traditional definition of portraits offered by Richard Brilliant (1991) “Fundamental to portraits as a distinct genre in the vast repertoire of artistic representation is the necessity of expressing this intended relationship between the portrait image and the human original” (pg 7) Portraiture. Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press. That is, that a portrait refers to a human being which exists outside the portrait. And further to this, it is a portrayer, the artist, who carries out the referencing or representing. It is essentially a double act – both the portrayer and the portrayed exist as an original reality and as this double act, they create a special relationship that increases the ‘being’ both of the represented and the representation. It is the double act (my words) itself that creates the ‘authentic’ portrait; the mode of representation that makes us as viewers believe that the signified (sitter) and the signifier (portrait) form a unity.

 

He believes that in the 20th century, this definition became problematic largely because the portrait genre was the perfect place to deconstruct prior thinking about the definition of the self. The mimetic representation of the portrait seemed to offer an authoritative view of the human subject and so the portrait as a genre was the perfect place for artists to subvert this view.

Picasso, Cindy Sherman, Warhol, Francis Bacon,  etc, in their portaits have challenged and marked new ways of thinking about the intersection between portraits and human subjectivity.