Portraiture

“ Portraiture is associated with the earliest attempts at representing living objects, both in sculpture and in painting. Even amongst savages we find resemblances, carved or painted, or both, of the human form, generally grotesque, but always presenting an idea of Art. With the advance of civilization, the demand for portraits increased, as the knowledge of the means available for painting and sculpture improved. ”

“ Portraiture, indeed, was almost confined to the theatrical artists, for although some admirable and characteristic transcripts of the features of famous priests of bygone times have been handed down to us by the temple wood-carvers, there is scarcely anything deserving the name of portraiture in painting, and no example of it even in the works of the prolific nétsuké carver. ”

“ Expressions in Portraits In such a case a three-quarter view, or even a full face would be wiser—and kinder. Some people run away with the idea that portraiture is merely seeking out defects and exaggerations—but that is caricature. ”

“ At the same time, the subtlety of this draughtsmanship cannot be denied. For complexity and difficulty, portraiture takes a supreme place, and yet, on the other hand, as the Frenchman points out in his antithetical sentences, it is to a certain extent a simple art, and we all know artists who are able with a piece of chalk to suggest an even startling likeness which they would be quite unable to complete into the form of a perfect portrait. ”

“ However compatible with portraiture the course of painting may be in all its modes of production it should, however, make the particular features of the face, the specific forms, ways of posing, grouping, and schemes of colour consonant with the actual situation, in which it composes its figures and natural objects in order to express a content. ”

“ In a general sense nearly all painting where the human figure is introduced, is portraiture, and it has been so since soon after the middle of the fifteenth century, when artists commenced to use living men and women for secondary or accessory figures in sacred pictures. The increasing importance attached to the anatomy of the figure resulted in the extensive use of models, and so in a measure portraiture rose to be a leading feature in the work of the artist. ”

“ While portraiture has been the field to which most of our leading painters of the figure have directed their attention during this period, genre has been represented by several artists of decided ability, who, under more favorable art auspices, might have achieved superior results. ”

“ There have been portrait-painters who were greater painters, in the more limited sense of the word, than these two, and there has been at least one painter whose imaginative sympathy gave an inner life to his portraits absent from theirs, but in the essential qualities of portraiture, as distinguished from all other forms of art, perhaps no one else has quite equalled them. ”

“ But where the personages thus depicted are forgotten or unknown the sympathy which is excited by their portraiture in a given action or situation, which gives definite content to a particular character, is of a wholly different kind to that which we find in the entirely simple type of conception above referred to. Really great portraits, when they face us in the fullest wealth of life all the means of art can display, possess in this wealth itself the power to stand forth from and step out of their frames. ”

“ The universal taste for portraiture exhibited by the ancients, and the encouragement to art which the vast wealth of many enabled them to afford, soon led to the formation of a gallery of portraits in every house of importance. ”

“ What Constable said of the portraits of an inferior artist—"He takes all the bones and brains out of his heads"—applies to a large class of portraiture, written as well as painted. They have no more life in them than a piece of waxwork, or a clothes-dummy at a tailor's door. What we want is a picture of a man as he lived, and lo! we have an exhibition of the biographer himself. We expect an embalmed heart, and we find only clothes. ”

“ Portraiture is differentiated from this kind of subject-picture through stages which it would be interesting to trace, but the portrait, though secular, is always treated in such a way as to exalt or dignify the sitter. Another kind of figure-piece, also differentiated by degrees from the subject-picture of the loftier kind, is the so-called Genre Painting, in which the human actors and their goings-on are in themselves indifferent, trivial, or mean and even repellent ”

“ Here confront us specimens of almost every subject legitimate to the art, and of some not legitimate—great pictures and little pictures, grave pictures and gay pictures, landscape and genre, history and portraiture, beasts, birds, fishes, and flowers. At either end of the room hangs a full-length portrait of a gentleman of note, which challenges the visitor's attention, be he never so reluctant. ”

“ His time was also much occupied with portraiture, many of his works of this class being royal commissions. His portraits are pictorial and excellent in general distribution, but the faces are frequently wanting in drawing and character. ”

“ With accuracy in the portrayal of men’s bodies goes of necessity a more naturalistic tendency in portraiture. As we have seen, the art of portraiture was at a high ideal level in the Pheidian age; and even in the age of Alexander the Great, notable men were rendered rather according to the idea than the fact. ”

“ The number of artists who have devoted the greater part of their energies to portraiture has been steadily on the increase. Most of the men who have taken definite rank among the figure painters have made reputations by their portraits also, but there are many others who have kept almost exclusively to this branch of practice. ”

“ The student should make a careful study of the values, as upon these will depend the entire effect of the portrait and its fidelity as a likeness; and the absence of these qualities of rendering light and shade are one of the marked features of the work of amateurs, as they are apt to make their shadows too dark and their lights too light. ”

“ for He maketh us most like Himself in His own essential portraiture and image, in sanctifying us. ”

“ But are no other portraits necessary? Should we not be taught to see the men and women among whom we really live,—men and women such as we are ourselves,—in order that we should know what are the exact failings which oppress ourselves, and thus learn to hate, and if possible to avoid in life the faults of character which in life are hardly visible, but which in portraiture of life can be made to be so transparent. ”

“ On that broad basis, portrait takes its exalted place between history and the drama. The portrait I mean is that common one, as widely spread as confined in its principle; the remembrancer of insignificance, mere human resemblance, in attitude without action, features without meaning, dress without drapery, and situation without propriety. The aim of the artist and the sitter's wish are confined to external likeness; that deeper, nobler aim, the personification of character, is neither required, nor, if obtained, recognised. ”

“ The portrait painter makes us feel all this in his picture. The attitude is so dignified, the gesture so forcible, the countenance so expressive, that we are impressed at once with the dignity of his character. ”

“ What is the picture, collectively seen, you ask, but the portrait, more or less elaborated, of a multitudinous People, of a social and political order?—so that the effect is, for all the world, as if, with the body and the limbs, the hands and feet and coat and trousers, all the accessories of the figure showily painted, the neat white oval of the face itself were innocent of the brush. ”

“ Portrait Painting.—A portrait painter in large practice might write a pretty book on the vanity and singularity of his sitters. A certain man came to Copely, and had himself, his wife and seven children all included in a family piece. "It was, but one thing." said he, "and that is the portrait of my first wife—for this one is my second." "But," said the artist, "she is dead you know sir; what can I do? she is only to be admitted as an angel." ”

“ PROLOGUE TO THE FOURTH STORY. My practice in the art of portrait-painting, if it has done nothing else, has at least fitted me to turn my talents (such as they are) to a great variety of uses. I have not only taken the likenesses of men, women, and children, but have also extended the range of my brush, under stress of circumstances, to horses, dogs, houses, and in one case even to a bull—the terror and glory of his parish, and the most truculent sitter I ever had. ”

“ The portrait thus conveyed by Photography, is not only an immense saving of time, labour and trouble, both to artist and sitter, by being enabled to secure individuality, but the variety of talent required for an artist to execute a portrait from life, is thus adequately balanced. ”

“ For him, a portrait, even as a still-life piece or a landscape, is a piece of temperamental art, a problem in colour, so much so that he is unable to start upon his portrait, has no inclination to do so, before all the conditions of tonality in the face of his model and in the environment selected by him are such that they respond in a measure to the painter's own sense of colour. ”

“ In America the work has been done with so coarse a hand that nothing is shown in the picture but the broad, plain, unspeaking outline of the face. As you look from the represented to the representation you cannot but acknowledge the likeness;—but there is in that portrait more of the body than of the mind. The true portrait should represent more than the body. ”

“ Therefore as portrait-painters are more exact in the lines and features of the face, in which the character is seen, than in the other parts of the body, so I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks and indications of the souls of men, in my portrayal of their lives. ”

“ With extraordinary delicacy and reserve the artist has succeeded in making every line of this portrait—for a portrait it must be—express all the innocence and charm, all the passionate purity of youth. ”

“ So also portrait-painting was not thought of, unless it occurred in the likeness of a great man belonging to the time and place of the painter, who was the donor of some picture to chapel or monastery, or of the painter himself, alike introduced into sacred groups and scenes; for pictures were uniformly of a religious character, until a little later, when they merged into allegorical representations, just as one remembers that miracle plays passed into moral plays before ordinary human life was reproduced. ”

“ Portrait painters now depend for their effect on the mere accidents of the entourage; on dress, on landscape, even on broad hints of a man's occupation, putting a plan on the engineer's table, and a roll in the statesman's hands, like the old Greek who wrote 'this is an ox' under his picture. ”

“ And why I have not before now finished the miniature I promised to Mrs. Butts? I answer I have not, till now, in any degree pleased myself, and now I must entreat you to excuse faults, for portrait-painting is the direct contrary to designing and historical painting, in every respect. If you have not nature before you for every touch, you cannot paint portrait; and if you have nature before you at all, you cannot paint history. ”

“ On the other hand, a portrait that is hardly recognizable by those who know best, and least, the person it purports to portray, may be in fact a true, a profound, a perfect likeness—a faithful reproduction of the face as a medium, with the mask discarded. ”

“ Think of the years of study, toil, practice, discouragements it takes to make an artist capable of painting an acceptable portrait, not only a resemblance to the person, but to portray the character, to catch the spirit, and even the charm, if the artist be so highly gifted. ”

“ As for allowing the portrait to be exhibited, that is no more than an act of justice to the artist, who has no other means of making his abilities known so well, and of forwarding himself in his profession. If we look round the rooms at Somerset House, and observe how large a proportion of the portraits represent children, the old, and persons in middle life, we shall see that very few indeed are those which can have been painted, or exhibited for the gratification of personal vanity. ”

“ The excellence of Portrait-painting, and, we may add, even the likeness, the character, and countenance, as I have observed in another place, depend more upon the general effect produced by the Painter than on the exact expression of the peculiarities, or minute discrimination of the parts. The chief attention of the artist is therefore employed in planting the features in their proper places, which so much contributes to giving the effect and true impression of the whole. ”

“ I am very glad of it, as it is a proof of some attention; but I hope you will be as good a portrait painter, which is a much more noble science. By portraits, you will easily judge, that I do not mean the outlines and the coloring of the human figure; but the inside of the heart and mind of man. ”

“ Portraits, not of the mere formation of mouths and noses, which in so many cases, viewed merely as forms, are defective and unattractive, but portraits of the same faces, upon which the character of the inward mind and heart was so stamped that it threw the mere shape of the features far into the background. ”

“ Then, happening to look at the portrait from a little distance, all the fine touches and tiny copied strokes blended into one, and he stood amazed by the thing that he had done—the portrait of a young, beautiful and wise—far too knowing!—young woman. ”

“ There is as much character in the human figure as in the face; consequently full-length portraits are best, because they add to the facial resemblance the attitude and peculiarities of the figure. If the portrait is half-size, then the attitude ought to indicate the position of the lower extremities. ”