Portrait Paintings are artistic representation of human beings. The aristic intent is toshow the appearnce of the person and capture some charcteristical trait of that verypersom which makes him or her a distinct human being. Great masters manage to make celebrities out of nameless, unknown people (Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa) or bare their soul in their self portraits (Van Gogh). Good Portraiture is like a well written biography, it’s a journey to a persons soul.
History of Portrait Painting
Some of the earliest examples of Portraiture are to be found in Egypt's Fayum district.
These are funeral portraits of ordinary people. In Rome the art of portraiture found shape in beautiful sculptures. However in Europe the idealized figures of kings and rulers began to be popular and authentic depiction of form and figure was relegated to the shadows.
In the middle Ages, portraiture became fashionable in France.
Famous Portrait Paintings
We will try to analyze two very different portraits from two different eras to understand the true nature of representation through the visual medium.
Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona-Lisa
Mona Lisa , or La Gioconda (La Joconde) was painted in the 16th-century and is an oil on poplar wood.this portrait of the unknown model has captured the heart of the millions. For nearly 500 years, a sense of bafflement overwhelms those who stare at Da Vinci's most famous portrait. She appears to be smiling at times and the very next moment the smile fades away. How did the great painter capture such a mysterious expression and why haven't other artists copied it? After running the painting through an emotion recognition software (specially designed for this very purpose), they claimed that the smile is 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful, 2% angry, less than 1% neutral, and not surprised at all.
Page
1 | 2
|
