Portraiture

Discuss the journey that Portraiture has taken over its' history. 

History of Portraiture

Portraiture is an art form depicting individuals or a group of people in a recognizable way. This includes painting, sculpture and photography. They generally represent someone's status within society, for example royalty were always in expensive finery with a dominating stance. Wearing armor would symbolize, a crown would symbolize royalty and so on.

Some of the first portraits discovered were from Ancient Egypt. Sarcophagus' and statues were modeled/drawn from real people, generally the more wealthy like kings and rulers. They commissioned these so that there they would be immortalized for everyone to see.They would always be portrayed in a positive way since the artists didn't have a choice. They wouldn't get paid if the artwork didn't end up how the client wanted. 

Above right: An ancient Egyptian sarcophagus.

By the nineteenth century the use of the portrait was changing. Society was becoming more literate meaning that books and words became more popular than painting when describing someone's appearance. 

By the twentieth century photographic portraits where taking over as technology advanced and pictures became sharper and more defined. They could be symbolic, artistic, formal or really any style at all. Celebrities and royalty could be shown in any kind of light with the photograph being an actual representation if them. No waiting in long sittings, a portrait could be almost instant. This was appealing and suddenly portraits weren't just for the privileged. All kinds of people had them done.

 
Left: The royal commissioned portrait of Catherine Duchess Of Cambridge.

Above right: The Queen on a £10 bank note.

Nowadays portraits are common place. The queen's portrait is on our currency, we have school photos done every year, photos in out passports, photos on our driving licences and any other ID cards we may own. Portraits are available to everyone whereas they used to be just for the well off.

Diane Arbus
Left: Diane Arbus self portrait.

Arbus always photographed in black and white squares. Her subjects were always "deviant and marginal people or of people whose normality seems ugly or surreal" (mostly giants, dwarfs, nudists, transgender people and circus performers). She looked for the strange and maybe even slightly repulsive things to photograph. She accentuated people's flaws and the things they didn't want others to see. To many she was known as the "the photographer of freaks". She refused to hide any imperfections, her work was 100% realistic.

Diane Arbus (1923 - 71) was born into a wealthy Jewish-American family. She married Allan Arbus at the age of 18 and spent the next 20 years working as professional fashion photographers. Her style then drastically changed quickly as she became fascinated with the weird things in the world.

In late 1969 she was commisioned to take the Matthaei family portraits. Konrad Matthaei (the father of the family) was a well-known television actor and theater owner surrounded by media attention. For two days, Arbus followed the family around taking pictures of everything, from meals, to the children playing with their new presents. She set up her photographs very carefully by removing obstacles and arranging people how she wanted. By the end of the two days she had taken 322 photographs, which averages at one photograph every two minutes, pretty impressive. All the photos represented her style and look on life. It was a vernacular photography (the photography of ordinary/normal things).

Above right: A picture from the Matthaei family shoot.

Walker Evans
Left: Walker Evans self portrait.

Evans was an American photographer who aimed to take pictures that were "literate, authoritative and transcendent". His best known work is probably how he documented the effects of the great depression. 

Walker Evans came from a good family and he was well educated. He went from studying french literature to joining the art crow in New York, quite a drastic career change. He began photography in 1982 and slowly grew in his profession. Then in 1985 came the great depression. He was employed for two months to document, through photography, what was happening in America at the time. Throughout that time he photographed families suffering. The images he produced were gritty and painted a very realistic picture of life during the great depression. The portraits exposed the subjects feelings and their appearance emphasized the poverty they were in.

Right: Allie Mae Burroughs. Evan's most symbolic photo of the great depression.

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