We are used to seeing images of the famous, infamous – and not so famous – thrust at us daily, but many of us still stand tongue-tied when we come face-to-face with the traditional, painted portrait.
Rosie Broadley is an assistant curator at London’s National Portrait Gallery – home of the annual BP Portrait Award exhibition.
Her job involves working across the gallery’s primary collection, selecting pieces to display in the smaller, companion exhibitions – and she spends every day looking at some of the most famous faces in British history and culture.
So, what should we be looking for in a portrait – and how necessary is it to get the terminology right?
Rosie says that art historians might begin by classifying the work according to pose – bust, head and shoulders, half-length or full length. And the subject of a portrait is always called a sitter, because in the past subjects “sat” for a portrait, whether they sat, stood or reclined tastefully.
The non-expert, however, might begin by looking at the face of the sitter:
“The good thing about portraiture,” Rosie told Arts Hub, “Is that it’s probably the least intimidating of all art because you are looking at another person.”
So, start by having a look at what might be different about that person – the pose, features, clothing – and hunt for clues as to what they might do.
The obvious starting point is how a face might interest or affect you. The four paintings short-listed for this year’s award concentrate on the face, without any background detail to inform or intrude.
Rosie calls this type of portrait “psychological” – where the painter is looking deep into the character of his or her sitter.
The relationship between painter and sitter is crucial – the image we are viewing is a combination of how the painter sees his or her subject and how the sitter would like to be seen.
“Portraiture is an artificial presentation of a person’s physical features,” Rosie points out. But it can be easy to identify with that person through clues we pick up about them in the painting.
Historical portraits often reveal the social status of the sitter through their pose, clothing and the setting, particularly in the case of monarchs.
The gallery’s portrait of King Charles II, attributed to Thomas Hawker, shows the enthroned king draped in finery, legs akimbo, sure of his position – and his masculinity: known as the “Merry Monarch”, Charles II acknowledged just fourteen of the many illegitimate children he fathered.
Royalty, Rosie says, often adopts a stance that reflects power – others may feel shy, as in the case of this year’s BP shortlist entry by Johan Andersson, who paints his friend Tamara in the nude. Her slightly hunched shoulders betray her discomfort and the light touching her top lip hints at her nervousness, which Andersson captures.
These are details that would be noticeable if you were face-to-face with a person –and portraits work in the same way.
“There is something magical about the relationship between artist and sitter, which develops over time,” Rosie says.
When we study a portrait, we witness the incarnation of this.
Patrick Heron’s abstract portrait of TS Eliot captures an ageing Eliot, but one still vibrant, as shown by the use of colour and the “meeting lines” or “frontiers” Heron describes when talking about the portrait.
In Giovanni Boldini’s depiction of the socialite Lady Colin Campbell, the sitter’s limbs are fabulously extended to exaggerate her elegance, Rosie explains.
There was a time when portraits were called counterfeits – an accurate portrayal of a person. But in medieval times, individuality was not an issue and a portrait of the new monarch would look pretty much like the last one, Rosie says.
The Tudors were the first to become interested in the individual and pay attention to the details of a person – the identification of a particular brooch worn by the sitter in one Tudor portrait transformed Lady Jane Grey into Catherine Parr in 1996.
Rosie says that attributing an unknown portrait to a particular artist and identifying the sitter can be a complicated process, involving the study of the provenance or history of a painting, auction records, household inventories, diaries and historical accounts of the period – including a painter’s own records – as well as any family name by which the painting might be known.
Fashions are taken into account, so what a sitter is wearing is very important – good news for fashionistas, whose first reaction might be to home in on the details of a costume.
Rosie says that admiring clothing the sitter is wearing is one way of identifying with the human being in a portrait – it is human nature to notice and comment on such details and is something we do every day.
Art historians may get excited about technique – the way paint or materials are applied, for example – but the impact of a portrait is the same as the impact of meeting someone for the first time, and absorbing details such as eye colour and dress are all ways of relating to that person.
In the background, you may find other clues as to the sitter’s life or loves – or even the artist’s.
Hynek Martinec’s BP shortlist portrait reveals his Paris studio reflected in his girlfriend Zuzana’s sunglasses.
The fine brush stroke technique also gives the work a photographic effect. So does such detail make one portrait stand head and shoulders above the rest?
Rosie says that, although a painter’s technique may be admired, composition and use of materials can produce different effects and move the viewer in different ways.
But why should we need to paint portraits that look like photographs – or paint them at all – when there is now a vast array of sophisticated camera equipment available?
“An artist can see something in a person that a machine can’t,” Rosie says.
It is the human element of painting that is important – technique combined with insight into a sitter can bring out aspects of that person we might otherwise overlook.
Paul Emsley’s BP shortlist portrait of artist Michael Simpson uses soft brush strokes to depict the sitter’s white hair, which contrasts with the acuteness of his gaze and the sharply etched lines of experience on his cheeks.
David Lawton’s painting of his friend Stephen uses a similar soft brush effect, but the immediacy of the pose challenges the viewer. In normal life we might back away, but because it is a painting, we can stand our ground and explore the face being thrust towards us.
In this way, portraiture frees us from many of the constraints imposed by polite society.
And seeing images of well known historical figures may help us to understand them not only as icons, but also human beings.
A painting “has a way of telling history,” Rosie says. “If you know what somebody looks like, it’s much easier to remember what they’ve done.”
So, next time someone in the gallery catches your eye, stand back and have a good look. It may turn out to be one moment in your life when it’s not rude to stare.
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Shorlisted portraits: Tamara by Johan Andersson, Michael Simpson by Paul Emsley and Stephen by David Lawton
Editor’s note: You can see the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place, London WC2H 0HE (Tel: 020 7306 0055), from 14 June to 16 September 2007.
