Eight centuries of portraiture

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Not just another book of pretty pictures, says Sarah Lawson – the value of this book lies in its commentary on the context, innovation and reputation of 50 portraits

Portraits: Fifty Paintings You Should Know by Brad Finger

This is a manageable showcase for 50 representative artists of the past seven centuries. With a page for each portrait and a page of explanation, Brad Finger provides a fine introduction to mainly European painting from Botticelli and Dürer to Andy Warhol. All the old favourites are here, plus a few more you might not have thought of, but inevitably lacking a few that you might have expected. In this telescoped view of a long period of artistic development, it is fascinating to see the unexpected ways portraiture developed and the ways innovations hundreds of years ago influenced the genre down to the present.

The first work in this collection is an anonymous portrait of c.1350 of the French King Jean le Bon. The face is in profile and, unlike some earlier exercises in portraiture, it has some individualized features, such as his nose and beard. A scant 75 years later, Robert Campin in Flanders produced his Portrait of a Fat Man, as different as you can imagine from Jean le Bon. There is nothing stylized about him. He is a real person with unique features from his haircut to his fur collar, from the scar on his forehead to his protruding lower lip.

It is somehow startling to see the leap in portraiture from stylized kings and saints in the High Middle Ages to real people in the 15th century. Suddenly (so it seems) there are age spots, double chins, real noses and ears. Finally, the artist was really looking at the subject in front of him. Fine clothing is rendered in all its light and shade; velvets are palpable, sheer lawn is visible but transparent.

Fine as the classical profiles of Italian portraiture are, there is not the same play of light and shadow as in the Flemish portraits. Piero della Francesca’s portrait of Federico da Montefeltro is here, in his red tunic and red hat, with his hooked nose and slightly reptilian eyes. Meanwhile, back in Flanders, at about the same time Rogier van der Weyden was producing his Portrait of a Lady, an Angelina Jolie lookalike in a diaphanous headdress. She looks pretty individual to me, but Finger suggests that ‘the image represents an ideal image of female beauty in the fifteenth century – a beauty both modest and alluring at the same time’.

Albrecht Dürer, we learn, painted his own likeness in 1500 in a full-frontal pose that had previously been used only for images of Jesus. What was Dürer thinking? Scholars have discussed his motives and allusions, but, says Finger, ‘Whatever the interpretation, this work represents a milestone in the history of art. Dürer’s expression engages the viewer with an unprecedented focus and aggressiveness’.

Of course, the Mona Lisa is here. People have admired this picture since it was still on the easel and the paint was wet. Finger admits, ‘It is hard to pinpoint the qualities that give Mona Lisa her iconic status’. Her direct gaze and natural posture constituted an experimental divergence from what had gone before. ‘Yet the real meaning of Leonardo’s image remains uncertain—inspiring new generations to study and admire the art world’s most famous lady.’

The study of Martin Luther’s father by Lucas Cranach the Elder is striking in its realism. Hans Luther’s clothing is rendered with only a few lines, but his face is depicted with great attention to detail. You would certainly recognize him if you came across him in the market square of Wittenburg.

When Titian painted Charles V on Horseback he was reviving a classical genre and paving the way for later court painters such as Velásquez and Goya. Even this limited selection shows how artists were always trying out new effects, always exploring the possibilities of a given genre. Artemisia Gentileschi, for example, is represented here with her Self-portrait as an Allegory of Painting from 1638–9. She doesn’t look out at the viewer, but is concentrating on painting something just out of sight to the left. Moreover, the angle is from above and we look down on her figure, which, from the right arm holding the brush to the left arm holding the palette, makes a curve like a reversed C.

In Goethe in the Roman Campagna of 1787 by Tischbein, the great Goethe sits resting on one elbow and wearing one of the most impractical travelling cloaks ever, while behind him in a distant landscape are ranged ancient Roman ruins. Tischbein and Goethe were travelling together in Italy, and although Tischbein was a successful court painter in his day, his reputation now rests on this portrait of his friend.

By the time we get to Matisse in the early 20th century, portraiture has taken some more twists and turns. His portrait of his wife in 1905 features a green stripe down the middle of her face and is sometimes entitled The Green Stripe. Here ‘The color scheme alone creates the illusion of light and dark’, as one side of her face is pinkish and the other is yellowish. Once again an artist is experimenting with the limits of his trade. Finger tells us that ‘the subject of this portrait is not so much the sitter, but the art of painting itself—as redefined by Matisse’.

When Chuck Close created an immense portrait of Philip Glass (Phil) in 1969, he reproduced a snapshot using numerous modern tools and techniques.  As Finger says, ‘Like the “portraits” by Cézanne and Picasso before him, Close’s huge heads do not explore the subtleties of individual human character. The real subject of portraits such as Phil is the artistic process.’

Lucien Freud’s self-portrait is different again: an enigmatic expression and layers of paint rendering the texture of flesh. Freud is quoted from a 2005 interview as saying ‘Many people are inclined to look at portraits not for the art in them but to see how they resemble people. This seems to me a profound misunderstanding which is nevertheless very interesting’. He goes on to remark that he likes it when people say very contradictory things about his pictures.

The last portrait in the book is Betty (1988) by Gerhard Richter, and it is also featured on the front cover. One wonders what is left to experiment with after all the examples in Fifty Portraits, but Richter’s new wrinkle is a well executed picture of the back of Betty’s head. She has turned away to look over her shoulder, either at a dark void or possibly an early monochrome picture by Richter himself. Why has she turned her head? What is she looking at? Is this really a portrait?

One of the pleasures of Fifty Portraits is seeing the way some of these works have influenced later artists, a Dürer or Velásquez living on in his heirs. All the familiar portraits – Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, Whistler’s Mother – are saved from being just another book of pretty pictures by the commentary describing the context of the picture, the innovations of the artist, the reception of the picture and its later reputation. We see art changing from being the diffident product of an anonymous craftsman to the expression of the artist’s own personality and portraiture evolving from anonymity to precision to expressionism and beyond.

Portraits: Fifty Paintings You Should Know  by Brad Finger is published by Prestel, 2014. 141 pp., 50 colour illus + small pictures of 49 artists, £14.99.