History: Portraiture

Portaiture has long been a way to record the human image. Possibly the earliest known portrait is a 27,000 year old cave painting in Vihonneur, France. Not many of the prehistoric portraits have survived, but it is possible to trace portraits through ancient civilizations like Egypt, Rome, and China. Civilizations such as these used portraits to record images of kings, gods, and emperors, as well as to adorn burial chambers and tombs. During the 4th century CE, realistic and accurate portraits began to retreat in favor to an idealized symbol of what that person looked like. True portraits of the outward appearance reemerged during the middle ages, especially in Burgandy and France. The Renaissance marked a turning point in portraiture when a renewed importance on the Greco-Roman realistic style was formed.

After the Renaissance, portraits played an increasingly important role in the politics of powerful secular courts. Group portraits and images of lavishly dressed nobles were a way to establish power and authority over certain individuals. Throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries artist began to expand the repertoire of portraiture ranging from unnatural, garish skin tones on self-portraits to very accurate, realistic, intimate portraits. In the mid twentieth century, portraits declined in popularity as a result of increased interest in abstraction and nonfigurative art. Currently a revival in figurative art and portraits is creating a market for corporate, clerical, and middle-class commissions of children, loved ones and group sittings.

Timeline