Early forms of portraiture often came in the form of sculpture and statues. Grown out of political necessity they were often depicting emperors to celebrate their power. This demand for portraits was responsible for the growth of the Art Industry.
In Medieval times portraits were mainly in architecture, predominantly on the interiors of churches depicting saints onto panels. Up until the 1400’s portraits had mostly been of historical figures and of royalty. The style was hieratic, using symbols to denote character. It was not until the Italian Renaissance brought about concepts of three dimensional modelling, light and shade and perspective that the quality of portraits improved. Later the Dutch Realist School made painting the everyday and a natural approach more popular. The artist Johannes Vermeer painted portraits of ordinary people.
Once it was acceptable to paint anyone in a portrait artists began exploring the pictorial aspects of the image, such as colour and line. Further still some went on to consider the psychological state of the sitter. Expression of this became more important than an actual likeness.
This leads on to how portrait artists paint today and goes back to my dissertation subject of ‘relationship to the sitter’. When an artist paints a portrait there is a balance of achieving a likeness and portraying a particular character through expression. Some may choose to draw their sitters from life believing they can gain more of an insight into their character. Do we have to know the subject well to recognise when they are most like themselves? Some like Gerhard Richter may feel that painting directly from a photograph is no different. Does it depend on the photograph the artist chooses? On her essay in Portrait Painting and photography Cynthia Freeland makes the observation a “naïve realist might say that the photographer or (painter from photos) could succeed at capturing the subjects air fortuitously just in case the sitter was posing in a very characteristic way.” So are those of us painting from a picture just lucky or unlucky with the composition? I would like to think that by choosing my own composition for my paintings I can be very precise about the expression I am looking for. It may not reflect the inner character of the sitter however it retains a sense of presence. As Cynthia Freeland testifies “other photos work equally well to certify presence without capturing that elusive ‘air’.”
Chantal Joffe is an Artist born in Vermont USA but grew up and continues to work in London. She depicts mainly women and children from friends to fashion figures. Her works are predominantly large in scale but sometimes very small. Using broad, large, fluid brush strokes the individuals are re-animated occasionally disarming the viewer. I think the scale may have a part to play in this but equally the expression of her figures even on small scale hold our attention. Her energy can be seen in the way she paints and her juxtaposition of colour and pattern.
Her Recent Exhibition of works: At the Seaside for the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings depicts larger than life paintings of friends on tall canvases alongside more petite compositions of children. Sparing us precise detail, instead she concentrates on the layers of paint. Despite lashings of bright hues and her resistance to give away too much of a narrative, her faces all offer something haunting underneath the character’s surface. She paints in an unflattering light, presenting an awkwardness about each character at odds with the jolly hues and patterns.
After watching an interview about the exhibition (click here), it was interesting to hear how Joffe uses different base layers of colour to give a better ground to work on. She speaks of white being ‘cold’ and sometimes using pink or apple green underneath skin tones. Looking at the painting above we can see how Joffe has left an outline of the apple green around the figure perhaps to highlight it. I have decided to use cadmium red mixed with guesso as a ground for my next canvas. I had not intended for such an intense pink but I started off with too much cadmium so I continued adding white to bring the saturation down.
Still concentrating on heroes I thought what better hero is there than that of Dr Who and his side kick. Time is a central theme of Dr Who and I like the idea of freezing individual moments. I thought about the different emotions each actor brings to the role and how I could depict those emotions. I wanted to make quick sketches putting emphasis on the scene or emotion rather than the likeness of the drawing to the actor. I used water-colour pencils, ink and graphite. The water-colour emphasized the fading away of the character before he is brought back to life by Rose. The fluidity of ink adds movement to the fearful expression of actor Matt Smith whilst the graphite is hard and accentuates the anger in the 9th Dr’s face. When drawing the doctor and rose mirroring one another I let the ink run and drip. I scratched and smudged so that elements of the image became blurred and imperfect. This is something I may try in Oils on a larger scale.
I also tried working to a smaller scale just to see how this would affect the image. This painting of Marius from Les Misérables was quickly executed and sourced from a film still. I painted with Oils onto card but I wasn’t too concerned with detail so much as scale. It gives an intimacy that larger paintings cannot but I think it would be interesting to see these kinds of images on the complete opposite size so that it envelopes the viewer. Much like Chuck Close’s work I want the audience to have to stand back to view the image imitating a cinematic feeling.
The Image above is a continuation from work of an earlier post-a painting of The Avengers. My decision has been to put it to one side I felt it was too much of a departure from my faces being that it concentrates more on the whole characters rather than emotion. So for the moment I feel there is plenty more to explore within the face alone. Maybe I will come back to this work at a later date.
After being interviewed by a writer for A.N. Blogs about the relationship between research for a dissertation and studio work I have decided to look at the common themes running through my work and my dissertation. Click here
My studio work has always looked to photography and other visual media as a source and my passion in painting is of portraits so I decided to address both subjects in my dissertation. I explored the relationship of the artist and subject and how personal environment and experience affects the artist’s work. This is reflected in my own work in the way we might perceive an image from cinema depending on our own life experiences. When Gerhard Richter exhibited October 18, 1977 depicting members of Germany’s Baader-Meinhof terrorist group ten years after the event, it still caused a great deal of controversy. My painting’s source may be taken from a film ten years ago but through watching and re-watching a relationship develops with that character and story.
In the 1990’s Elizabeth Peyton drew portraits of nineteenth century heroes. Of this work she stated “I was reading nineteenth century literature- that was my world. They were my best friends.” Like literature we can immerse ourselves in movies of fictional heroes until we are part of the team on screen. They also become our friends for those few hours and we can revisit them as much or as little as we like. Peyton’s later portraits were often celebrities. Through her broad, expressive brush strokes and intensely bright colours they were depicted as youthful, often gazing into the distance. In my own paintings I aim to capture something transient and brief by the act of painting alone but the use of loose brush marks and pattern can enhance this. Speaking of Peyton’s celebrity portrait’s Blazwick (2008, p. 33) observed ‘this sense of something fleeting and vulnerable is intensified by the delicacy of Peyton’s drawing.
My dissertation also explored the works of Chuck Close whose portraits had a uniformity in there face-on stance. I have also focused closely on the face of the subject however their expressions are more varied. Again colour becomes an important factor in slowing down the image, detaching it from it’s former source. Of the three artist’s I examined, Close’s subjects portrayed the least emotion and perhaps has less in common with my own work. It is his strict adherence to process that has influenced me most though. I like to work with a grid and to a certain scale. Like Close’s large scale works the viewer must stand at a distance for detail to be restored.
When I began painting a few years ago the subject was often my family. I had two nephews then (now three almost four!) and I wanted to capture their innocent expressions in paint. It is only now looking back I can see expression has always been important to me. After painting a picture of my sister and her son a mother commented “I know that expression”. I had aimed to capture my sister’s look of Joy at the moment the picture was taken. Like photographs, my aim was to capture that moment in time but with the added texture and expression of the paint.
With a passion for fashion photography I used this as source material as well as cat memes and celebrity. The subject wasn’t important to me as long as I developed my style by using media images around me. The attraction of fashion photography is similar to that of film; it present us with a fairy tale image. We know it is not real at yet we still like to believe it is attainable. I painted images of old Hollywood glamour and tried to present a narrative through an installation of dressing table and accessories. One painting: Ann of Prada was inspired by a portrait belonging to Christchurch Mansion. I kept the original portrait’s face and then used flat bright colours to produce a modern take on an old Portrait.
I think the definitive difference between now and then is the way I have control of the image. Before it was limiting working from magazines or photographs. I tried to make the images my own by letting the paint drip, changing the colours and the surface I worked on. I tried different grounds on my canvas but all the time the image did not feel personal to me. By taking the film itself and making my own stills I am somehow constructing my own series of events.
