portraiture

All posts tagged portraiture

Self-Portrait

Posted by Maverick ~ on September 16, 2018
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Self-Portrait  (ca. 1877)
George Caleb Bingham
American, 1811-1879
Oil on canvas

George Caleb Bingham painted this self-portrait, the last of four known, just two years before he died. The painting's composition was inspired by the English artist Sir Edward Landseer, who rendered himself similarly in a canvas that Bingham evidently knew from an engraving. The artist's direct gaze outward places the viewer in the role of a mirror. Bingham wears the toupee he customarily wore due to hair loss as a young man from a bout of smallpox.

Bingham's choice to picture himself sketching reflects the important role drawing played in his art. He drew on paper as well as sketched directly on the canvas for both portraits and genre paintings.

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Raphael West and Benjamin West Jr., Sons of the Artist

Posted by Maverick ~ on September 15, 2018
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Raphael West and Benjamin West Jr., Sons of the Artist, ca. 1796
Benjamin West
American, 1738-1820
Oil on canvas

Pennsylvania native Benjamin West was elected in 1792 as president of the prestigious Royal Academy in London, where he had been a resident since 1763. Although the artist's fame depended on history paintings, he painted numerous portraits of his family, including three of his two sons, Raphael and Benjamin, Jr., together. Here the artist's sons appear as sober young men. Even so, their mutual affection is apparent in their relaxed, intertwined pose. The dark shadows and moonlight in the background add a melancholic mood typical of the Romantic sensibility that was gaining popularity in the late 18th century. Both of West's sons worked in their father's studio. Neither man, however, had substantial success as an artist.

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Portrait Study of a Child

Posted by Maverick ~ on August 27, 2018
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Portrait Study of a Child
1891
Lilla Cabot Perry
American, 1848 – 1933
Oil on canvas


"Portrait Study of a Child presents Lilla Cabot Perry's poised seven-year-old daughter holding a violin. Confronting the viewer directly and by herself, this likeness of Alice Perry, unlike more sentimental depictions of children of the period, suggests the growing professionalism of women's creative endeavors throughout the late 19th century.


An elite Bostonian, Perry gravitated toward an artistic career beginning in the 1870s and responded to wide-ranging influences. The firm figure drawing evident in "Portrait Study" suggests her Parisian academic training, while her focus on children reveals the impact of painter Mary Cassatt. Furthermore, the portrait's restrained palette indicates Perry's admiration of James McNeill Whistler's unconventionally poetic approach to painting."

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Portrait of My Aunt, Caroline Walter Neustadter

Posted by Maverick ~ on August 24, 2018
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Portrait of My Aunt, Caroline Walter Neustadter, 1928
Florine Stettheimer
American, 1871–1944
Oil on canvas

"Before her death in 1944, Florine Stettheimer requested that all her paintings be destroyed. Fortunately, her family did not heed her wishes. Painted from memory, this portrait depicts Stettheimer’s beloved aunt who had passed away 16 years earlier. The pastel-colored setting, fanciful details, and flourishes incised into the heavy impasto (thick paint) enliven this memorial portrait. Stettheimer’s style has been regarded as naïve-looking yet sophisticated. It inspired comparisons to folk art, which was celebrated by many modern artists in the early 1900s."

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Portrait of Madame Freret Dericour

Posted by Maverick ~ on May 30, 2018
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Portrait of Madame Freret Dericour  (1769)
Joseph-Siffred Duplessis
French, 1725-1802
Oil on canvas

Duplessis was a portrait painter of solid accomplishment during the reigns of Louis XV (1715-1774) and XVI (1774-1793). In the Nelson-Atkins portrait, Rococo elegance is beginning to be modified by the more disciplined taste of Neoclassicism. The artist combines a sound sense of form and texture-particularly effective in the smooth, silky coat of the dog-with a straightforward interpretation of character. Here, an unadorned, simple background allows our attention to focus on the sitter, whose pose and gaze are relaxed but self-assured, and whose inclusion of a favorite pet indicates a capacity for kindness and affection.

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Mrs. Cecil Wade

Posted by Maverick ~ on May 27, 2018
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Mrs. Cecil Wade (1886)
John Singer Sargent
Oil on canvas 

John Singer Sargent's Mrs. Cecil Wade shows the 23-year-old wife of an English stockbroker occupying the spacious drawing room of her luxurious London townhome. Sitting stiffly on a settee, she projects a refined, austere presence. Her chiseled profile suggests reserve as well as elevated social status. Conditioned by contemporary French and 17th-century Spanish painting techniques, Sargent's talented brush impressively evokes a range of lighting effects and textures, including fine satin, polished wood and sheer curtains.

Mrs. Cecil Wade was among Sargent's first significant commissions upon relocating to London from Paris in 1886. His move was prompted by a scandal involving his sensuous Madame X (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), which had recently offended Parisian audiences and had temporarily undermined his market there.

Mexican Girl with Oriental Scarf 

Posted by Maverick ~ on May 25, 2018
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Mexican Girl with Oriental Scarf 
(ca. 1916–22)
Robert Henri
Oil on canvas

Robert Henri painted sitters from many races, portraying them with his signature keen analysis of character and masterful brushwork. A 1914 trip inaugurated his long-standing fascination with the Southwest and the region’s ethnically diverse people.

This interest was further fostered by multiple visits to northern New Mexico where he found subjects who reflected a blend of cultures, notably Mexican and local Native and Hispanic Americans. Henri acknowledged: “I am looking at each individual with the eager hope of finding something of the dignity of life…the humanity…. I do not wish to explain these people…. I only want to find whatever of the great spirit there is in the Southwest. If I can hold it on my canvas, I am satisfied.”

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Portrait of Richard Gallo

Posted by Maverick ~ on April 4, 2018
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Portrait of Richard Gallo
Gustave Caillebotte
Oil on canvas (1881)

Richard Gallo, a close friend of Gustave Caillebotte and editor of the liberal newspaper Le Constitutionnel, is shown with his arms folded defiantly across his chest and a copy of the conservative rival paper, Le Figaro, on his lap. Caillebotte developed a distinctive style characterized by spatial distortions that often suggest the mood or psychology of his subjects.

Depictions of modern Parisian life, whether on the streets or inside middle-class homes, dominated Caillebotte’s paintings of the 1870s and early 1880s.

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Jo, the Beautiful Irish Woman

Posted by Maverick ~ on March 28, 2018
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Jo, the Beautiful Irish Woman
Gustave Courbet
Oil on canvas (1866)

"This canvas celebrates Gustave Courbet’s feeling for his subject Jo Hiffernan, whom he affectionately called “the beautiful Irish woman.” He painted the portrait shortly after meeting Hiffernan, the studio model and mistress of the American painter James McNeill Whistler, during the summer of 1865. As the composition was incredibly popular with Courbet’s middle-class patrons, he painted four almost identical versions around 1866, including this one. He kept one of the portraits until his death, making copies from it upon request."

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Family Portrait in a Landscape

Posted by Maverick ~ on February 26, 2018
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Family Portrait in a Landscape
Gonzales Coques
Flemish  (1614–1684)

Gonzales Coques developed a portrait style that combined the intimacy of a small-scale painting with the grandeur of court portraiture. Here, this family displays their wealth by posing in a garden setting decorated with ornamental features taken from the artist’s repertoire of stock accessories. The black groom leading a horse does not necessarily represent an actual person, but would have been perceived at the time as an “exotic” status symbol. Artists regularly inserted African youths into portraits even when their sitters did not retain black servants in their households.

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