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139-526: A still life is a work of art depicting inanimate subject matter. Still Life , The Still Life , or Still Lives may also refer to: Still life With origins in the Middle Ages and Ancient Greco-Roman art, still-life painting emerged as a distinct genre and professional specialization in Western painting by the late 16th century, and has remained significant since then. One advantage of

278-542: A bodegón is a still-life painting depicting pantry items, such as victuals, game, and drink, often arranged on a simple stone slab, and also a painting with one or more figures, but significant still-life elements, typically set in a kitchen or tavern. Starting in the Baroque period, such paintings became popular in Spain in the second quarter of the 17th century. The tradition of still-life painting appears to have started and

417-418: A caricature which attempts to reveal character through exaggeration of physical features. The artist generally attempts a representative portrayal, as Edward Burne-Jones stated, "The only expression allowable in great portraiture is the expression of character and moral quality, not anything temporary, fleeting, or accidental." In most cases, this results in a serious, closed lip stare, with anything beyond

556-556: A Stand by Gustave Caillebotte , a painting which was mocked at the time as a "display of fruit in a bird's-eye view." Vincent van Gogh 's "Sunflowers" paintings are some of the best-known 19th-century still-life paintings. Van Gogh uses mostly tones of yellow and rather flat rendering to make a memorable contribution to still-life history. His Still Life with Drawing Board (1889) is a self-portrait in still-life form, with Van Gogh depicting many items of his personal life, including his pipe, simple food (onions), an inspirational book, and

695-404: A bride and groom visiting a goldsmith is a typical example of a transitional still life depicting both religious and secular content. Though mostly allegorical in message, the figures of the couple are realistic and the objects shown (coins, vessels, etc.) are accurately painted but the goldsmith is actually a depiction of St. Eligius and the objects heavily symbolic. Another similar type of painting

834-400: A client's dissatisfaction with his wife's portrait by retorting, "You brought me a potato, and you expect a peach!" A successful portrait, however, can gain the lifelong gratitude of a client. Count Balthazar was so pleased with the portrait Raphael had created of his wife that he told the artist, "Your image…alone can lighten my cares. That image is my delight; I direct my smiles to it, it

973-455: A client. Managing the sitter's expectations and mood is a serious concern for the portrait artist. As to the faithfulness of the portrait to the sitter's appearance, portraitists are generally consistent in their approach. Clients who sought out Sir Joshua Reynolds knew that they would receive a flattering result, while sitters of Thomas Eakins knew to expect a realistic, unsparing portrait. Some subjects voice strong preferences, others let

1112-689: A contrast. One change was a new enthusiasm among French painters, who now form a large proportion of the most notable artists, while the English remained content to import. Jean-Baptiste Chardin painted small and simple assemblies of food and objects in a most subtle style that both built on the Dutch Golden Age masters, and was to be very influential on 19th-century compositions. Dead game subjects continued to be popular, especially for hunting lodges; most specialists also painted live animal subjects. Jean-Baptiste Oudry combined superb renderings of

1251-556: A diversity of objects, fruits, flowers and dead game, often together with living people and animals. The style was soon adopted by artists from the Dutch Republic . Especially popular in this period were vanitas paintings, in which sumptuous arrangements of fruit and flowers, books, statuettes, vases, coins, jewelry, paintings, musical and scientific instruments, military insignia, fine silver and crystal, were accompanied by symbolic reminders of life's impermanence. Additionally,

1390-440: A face. In his notebooks, Leonardo advises on the qualities of light in portrait painting: A very high degree of grace in the light and shadow is added to the faces of those who sit in the doorways of rooms that are dark, where the eyes of the observer see the shadowed part of the face obscured by the shadows of the room, and see the lighted part of the face with the greater brilliance which the air gives it. Through this increase in

1529-507: A few objects of food and tableware laid on a table. Still-life painting in Spain, also called bodegones , was austere. It differed from Dutch still life, which often contained rich banquets surrounded by ornate and luxurious items of fabric or glass. The game in Spanish paintings is often plain dead animals still waiting to be skinned. The fruits and vegetables are uncooked. The backgrounds are bleak or plain wood geometric blocks, often creating

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1668-510: A full-face painting. He also placed his self-portrait figure (as an onlooker) in several of his religious paintings. Dürer began making self-portraits at the age of thirteen. Later, Rembrandt would amplify that tradition. In Italy, Masaccio led the way in modernizing the fresco by adopting more realistic perspective. Filippo Lippi paved the way in developing sharper contours and sinuous lines and his pupil Raphael extended realism in Italy to

1807-737: A given profession, as with the Cornelis Norbertus Gysbrecht's painting "Painter's Easel with Fruit Piece", which displays all the tools of a painter's craft. Also popular in the first half of the 17th century was the painting of a large assortment of specimens in allegorical form, such as the "five senses", "four continents", or "the four seasons", showing a goddess or allegorical figure surrounded by appropriate natural and human-made objects. The popularity of vanitas paintings, and these other forms of still life, soon spread from Holland to Flanders and Germany, and also to Spain and France. The Netherlandish production of still lifes

1946-515: A great patron of artists and an avaricious art collector who invited Leonardo da Vinci to live in France during his later years. The Mona Lisa stayed in France after Leonardo died there. During the Baroque and Rococo periods (17th and 18th centuries, respectively), portraits became even more important records of status and position. In a society dominated increasingly by secular leaders in powerful courts, images of opulently attired figures were

2085-472: A greater variety of poses, lighting, and technique. Rather than producing revolutionary innovations, Raphael's great accomplishment was strengthening and refining the evolving currents of Renaissance art. He was particularly expert in the group portrait. His masterpiece the School of Athens is one of the foremost group frescoes, containing likenesses of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Bramante, and Raphael himself, in

2224-506: A letter from his brother, all laid out on his table, without his own image present. He also painted his own version of a vanitas painting Still Life with Open Bible, Candle, and Book (1885). In the United States during Revolutionary times, American artists trained abroad applied European styles to American portrait painting and still life. Charles Willson Peale founded a family of prominent American painters, and as major leader in

2363-420: A means to affirm the authority of important individuals. Flemish painters Sir Anthony van Dyck and Peter Paul Rubens excelled at this type of portraiture, while Jan Vermeer produced portraits mostly of the middle class, at work and play indoors. Rubens’ portrait of himself and his first wife (1609) in their wedding attire is a virtuoso example of the couple portrait. Rubens' fame extended beyond his art—he

2502-953: A much higher level in the following decades with his monumental wall paintings. During this time, the betrothal portrait became popular, a particular specialty of Lorenzo Lotto . During the early Renaissance, portrait paintings were generally small and sometimes covered with protective lids, hinged or sliding. During the Renaissance, the Florentine and Milanese nobility, in particular, wanted more realistic representations of themselves. The challenge of creating convincing full and three-quarter views stimulated experimentation and innovation. Sandro Botticelli , Piero della Francesca , Domenico Ghirlandaio , Lorenzo di Credi , and Leonardo da Vinci and other artists expanded their technique accordingly, adding portraiture to traditional religious and classical subjects. Leonardo and Pisanello were among

2641-427: A multitude of still-life elements ostensibly to reproduce a 'slice of life ' ". The trompe-l'œil painting, which intends to deceive the viewer into thinking the scene is real, is a specialized type of still life, usually showing inanimate and relatively flat objects. Still-life paintings often adorn the interior of ancient Egyptian tombs. It was believed that food objects and other items depicted there would, in

2780-434: A new level of balance, harmony, and insight, and the greatest artists (Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael) were considered "geniuses", rising far above the tradesman status to valued servants of the court and the church. Many innovations in the various forms of portraiture evolved during this fertile period. The tradition of the portrait miniature began, which remained popular until the age of photography, developing out of

2919-423: A normal portrait when sitter and artist are opposite each other. In a self-portrait, a righted handed artist would appear to be holding a brush in the left hand, unless the artist deliberately corrects the image or uses a second reversing mirror while painting. Occasionally, the client or the client's family is unhappy with the resulting portrait and the artist is obliged to re-touch it or do it over or withdraw from

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3058-405: A painted portrait is intended to achieve a likeness of the sitter that is recognisable to those who have seen them, and ideally is a very good record of their appearance. In fact this concept has been slow to grow, and it took centuries for artists in different traditions to acquire the distinct skills for painting a good likeness. A well-executed portrait is expected to show the inner essence of

3197-532: A painting's artistic merit was based primarily on its subject. In the Academic system, the highest form of painting consisted of images of historical , Biblical or mythological significance, with still-life subjects relegated to the very lowest order of artistic recognition. Instead of using still life to glorify nature, some artists, such as John Constable and Camille Corot , chose landscapes to serve that end. When Neoclassicism started to go into decline by

3336-574: A self-portrait by the writer, mystic, scientist, illuminator, and musician Hildegard of Bingen (1152). As with contemporary coins, there was little attempt at a likeness. Stone tomb monuments spread in the Romanesque period. Between 1350 and 1400, secular figures began to reappear in frescos and panel paintings , such as in Master Theodoric 's Charles IV receiving fealty , and portraits once again became clear likenesses. Around

3475-419: A similar sympathetic female portrait with images of game birds. In Catholic Italy and Spain, the pure vanitas painting was rare, and there were far fewer still-life specialists. In Southern Europe there is more employment of the soft naturalism of Caravaggio and less emphasis on hyper-realism in comparison with Northern European styles. In France, painters of still lifes ( nature morte ) were influenced by both

3614-426: A skull, an hourglass or pocket watch, a candle burning down or a book with pages turning, would serve as a moralizing message on the ephemerality of sensory pleasures. Often some of the fruits and flowers themselves would be shown starting to spoil or fade to emphasize the same point. Another type of still life, known as ontbijtjes or "breakfast paintings", represent both a literal presentation of delicacies that

3753-456: A slight smile being rather rare historically. Or as Charles Dickens put it, "there are only two styles of portrait painting: the serious and the smirk." Even given these limitations, a full range of subtle emotions is possible from quiet menace to gentle contentment. However, with the mouth relatively neutral, much of the facial expression needs to be created through the eyes and eyebrows. As author and artist Gordon C. Aymar states, "the eyes are

3892-507: A surrealist air. Even while both Dutch and Spanish still life often had an embedded moral purpose, the austerity, which some find akin to the bleakness of some of the Spanish plateaus, appears to reject the sensual pleasures, plenitude, and luxury of Dutch still-life paintings. Even though Italian still-life painting (in Italian referred to as natura morta , "dead nature") was gaining in popularity, it remained historically less respected than

4031-419: A wide-ranging palette of colors, as with Pierre-Auguste Renoir 's Mme. Charpentier and her children , 1878 or restrict themselves to mostly white or black, as with Gilbert Stuart 's Portrait of George Washington (1796). Sometimes, the overall size of the portrait is an important consideration. Chuck Close 's enormous portraits created for museum display differ greatly from most portraits designed to fit in

4170-460: Is about four. Portraitists sometimes present their sitters with a portfolio of drawings or photos from which a sitter would select a preferred pose, as did Sir Joshua Reynolds . Some, such as Hans Holbein the Younger make a drawing of the face, then complete the rest of the painting without the sitter. In the 18th century, it would typically take about one year to deliver a completed portrait to

4309-411: Is above another who only produces fruit, flowers or seafood. He who paints living animals is more estimable than those who only represent dead things without movement, and as man is the most perfect work of God on the earth, it is also certain that he who becomes an imitator of God in representing human figures, is much more excellent than all the others ...". Still life developed as a separate category in

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4448-590: Is added to elevate the subject. This sort of large-scale still life continued to develop in Flemish painting after the separation of the North and South, but is rare in Dutch painting, although other works in this tradition anticipate the " merry company " type of genre painting . Gradually, religious content diminished in size and placement in this type of painting, though moral lessons continued as sub-contexts. One of

4587-593: Is also one of the first artists in Europe to sign their work, though he rarely dated them. Later in the 16th century, Titian assumed much the same role, particularly by expanding the variety of poses and sittings of his royal subjects. Titian was perhaps the first great child portraitist. After Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese became leading Venetian artists, helping the transition to Italian Mannerism . The Mannerists contributed many exceptional portraits that emphasized material richness and elegantly complex poses, as in

4726-417: Is another fine example of Rembrandt's mastery of the group painting, in which he bathes the corpse in bright light to draw attention to the center of the painting while the clothing and background merge into black, making the faces of the surgeon and the students standout. It is also the first painting that Rembrandt signed with his full name. In Spain, Diego Velázquez painted Las Meninas (1656), one of

4865-525: Is beloved, often making him kiss and speak to it. –Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo's Ginevra de' Benci ( c.  1474–8 ) is one of the first known three-quarter-view portraits in Italian art. Partly out of interest in the natural world and partly out of interest in the classical cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, portraits—both painted and sculpted—were given an important role in Renaissance society and valued as objects, and as depictions of earthly success and status. Painting in general reached

5004-544: Is completely absent, as is meticulously detailed brushwork. Impressionists instead focused on experimentation in broad, dabbing brush strokes, tonal values, and colour placement. The Impressionists and Post-Impressionists were inspired by nature's colour schemes but reinterpreted nature with their own colour harmonies, which sometimes proved startlingly unnaturalistic. As Gauguin stated, "Colours have their own meanings." Variations in perspective are also tried, such as using tight cropping and high angles, as with Fruit Displayed on

5143-473: Is more than half a face). Occasionally, artists have created composites with views from multiple directions, as with Anthony van Dyck 's triple portrait of Charles I in Three Positions . There are even a few portraits where the front of the subject is not visible at all. Andrew Wyeth 's Christina's World (1948) is a famous example, where the pose of the disabled woman – with her back turned to

5282-591: Is my joy." Portraiture's roots are likely found in prehistoric times, although few of these works survive today. In the art of the ancient civilizations of the Fertile Crescent , especially in Egypt, depictions of rulers and rulers as gods abound. However, most of these were done in a highly stylized fashion, and most in profile, usually on stone, metal, clay, plaster, or crystal. Egyptian portraiture placed relatively little emphasis on likeness, at least until

5421-432: Is one of the first examples of pure still life, precisely rendered and set at eye level. Though not overtly symbolic, this painting was owned by Cardinal Federico Borromeo and may have been appreciated for both religious and aesthetic reasons. Jan Bruegel painted his Large Milan Bouquet (1606) for the cardinal, as well, claiming that he painted it 'fatta tutti del natturel' (made all from nature) and he charged extra for

5560-463: Is one of the outstanding examples of this trend, with borders featuring an extraordinary range of objects, including coins and fishing-nets, chosen to complement the text or main image at that particular point. Flemish workshops later in the century took the naturalism of border elements even further. Gothic millefleur tapestries are another example of the general increasing interest in accurate depictions of plants and animals. The set of The Lady and

5699-404: Is particularly useful if the sitter's available time is limited. Otherwise, the general form then a rough likeness is sketched out on the canvas in pencil, charcoal, or thin oil. In many cases, the face is completed first, and the rest afterwards. In the studios of many of the great portrait artists, the master would do only the head and hands, while the clothing and background would be completed by

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5838-402: Is surpassed by only a very few...He painted barbershops and shoemakers' stalls, donkeys, vegetables, and such, and for that reason came to be called the 'painter of vulgar subjects'; yet these works are altogether delightful, and they were sold at higher prices than the greatest [paintings] of many other artists." By 1300, starting with Giotto and his pupils, still-life painting was revived in

5977-401: Is the family portrait combining figures with a well-set table of food, which symbolizes both the piety of the human subjects and their thanks for God's abundance. Around this time, simple still-life depictions divorced of figures (but not allegorical meaning) were beginning to be painted on the outside of shutters of private devotional paintings. Another step toward the autonomous still life was

6116-523: The Emperor Rudolf II , and there were many engraved illustrations for books (often then hand-coloured), such as Hans Collaert 's Florilegium , published by Plantin in 1600. Around 1600 flower paintings in oils became something of a craze; Karel van Mander painted some works himself, and records that other Northern Mannerist artists such as Cornelis van Haarlem also did so. No surviving flower-pieces by them are known, but many survive by

6255-684: The Etruscans and Greeks, and developed a very strong tradition, linked to their religious use of ancestor portraits, as well as Roman politics. Again, the few painted survivals, in the Fayum portraits , Tomb of Aline and the Severan Tondo , all from Egypt under Roman rule, are clearly provincial productions that reflect Greek rather than Roman styles, but we have a wealth of sculpted heads, including many individualized portraits from middle-class tombs, and thousands of types of coin portraits. Much

6394-768: The Late Antique period the interest in an individual likeness declined considerably, and most portraits in late Roman coins and consular diptychs are hardly individualized at all, although at the same time Early Christian art was evolving fairly standardized images for the depiction of Jesus and the other major figures in Christian art, such as John the Baptist , and Saint Peter . Most early medieval portraits were donor portraits , initially mostly of popes in Roman mosaics , and illuminated manuscripts , an example being

6533-512: The Low Countries in the last quarter of the 16th century. The English term still life derives from the Dutch word stilleven while Romance languages (as well as Greek, Polish, Russian and Turkish) tend to use terms meaning dead nature . 15th-century Early Netherlandish painting had developed highly illusionistic techniques in both panel painting and illuminated manuscripts , where

6672-517: The Roman wall paintings and floor mosaics unearthed at Pompeii, Herculaneum and the Villa Boscoreale , including the later familiar motif of a glass bowl of fruit. Decorative mosaics termed "emblema", found in the homes of rich Romans, demonstrated the range of food enjoyed by the upper classes, and also functioned as signs of hospitality and as celebrations of the seasons and of life. By

6811-623: The Surrealists placed recognizable still-life objects in their dreamscapes. In Joan Miró 's still-life paintings, objects appear weightless and float in lightly suggested two-dimensional space, and even mountains are drawn as simple lines. In Italy during this time, Giorgio Morandi was the foremost still-life painter, exploring a wide variety of approaches to depicting everyday bottles and kitchen implements. Dutch artist M. C. Escher , best known for his detailed yet ambiguous graphics, created Still life and Street (1937), his updated version of

6950-541: The tulip (imported to Europe from Turkey), were celebrated in still-life paintings. The horticultural explosion was of widespread interest in Europe and artist capitalized on that to produce thousands of still-life paintings. Some regions and courts had particular interests. The depiction of citrus, for example, was a particular passion of the Medici court in Florence, Italy. This great diffusion of natural specimens and

7089-609: The "grand manner" painting of historical, religious, and mythic subjects. On the other hand, successful Italian still-life artists found ample patronage in their day. Furthermore, women painters, few as they were, commonly chose or were restricted to painting still life; Giovanna Garzoni , Laura Bernasconi , Maria Theresa van Thielen , and Fede Galizia are notable examples. Many leading Italian artists in other genre, also produced some still-life paintings. In particular, Caravaggio applied his influential form of naturalism to still life. His Basket of Fruit ( c.  1595 –1600)

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7228-477: The 16th century, food and flowers would again appear as symbols of the seasons and of the five senses. Also starting in Roman times is the tradition of the use of the skull in paintings as a symbol of mortality and earthly remains, often with the accompanying phrase Omnia mors aequat (Death makes all equal). These vanitas images have been re-interpreted through the last 400 years of art history, starting with Dutch painters around 1600. The popular appreciation of

7367-431: The 16th century, oil as a medium spread in popularity throughout Europe, allowing for more sumptuous renderings of clothing and jewelry. Also affecting the quality of the images, was the switch from wood to canvas , starting in Italy in the early part of the 16th century and spreading to Northern Europe over the next century. Canvas resists cracking better than wood, holds pigments better, and needs less preparation―but it

7506-457: The 1830s, genre and portrait painting became the focus for the Realist and Romantic artistic revolutions. Many of the great artists of that period included still life in their body of work. The still-life paintings of Francisco Goya , Gustave Courbet , and Eugène Delacroix convey a strong emotional current, and are less concerned with exactitude and more interested in mood. Though patterned on

7645-778: The American art community, also founded a society for the training of artists and a famous museum of natural curiosities. His son Raphaelle Peale was one of a group of early American still-life artists, which also included John F. Francis , Charles Bird King , and John Johnston. By the second half of the 19th century, Martin Johnson Heade introduced the American version of the habitat or biotope picture, which placed flowers and birds in simulated outdoor environments. The American trompe-l'œil paintings also flourished during this period, created by John Haberle , William Michael Harnett , and John Frederick Peto . Peto specialized in

7784-602: The Baroque period, particularly in the Netherlands. Unlike in the rest of Europe, Dutch artists received no commissions from the Calvinist Church which had forbidden such images or from the aristocracy which was virtually non-existent. Instead, commissions came from civic and businesses associations. Dutch painter Frans Hals used fluid brush strokes of vivid color to enliven his group portraits, including those of

7923-641: The British school were English painters Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds , who also specialized in clothing their subjects in an eye-catching manner. Gainsborough's Blue Boy is one of the most famous and recognized portraits of all time, painted with very long brushes and thin oil color to achieve the shimmering effect of the blue costume. Gainsborough was also noted for his elaborate background settings for his subjects. The two British artists had opposite opinions on using assistants. Reynolds employing them regularly (sometimes doing only 20 percent of

8062-550: The Catholic Southern Netherlands the genre of garland paintings was developed. Around 1607–1608, Antwerp artists Jan Brueghel the Elder and Hendrick van Balen started creating these pictures which consist of an image (usually devotional) which is encircled by a lush still life wreath. The paintings were collaborations between two specialists: a still life and a figure painter. Daniel Seghers developed

8201-542: The Northern and Southern schools, borrowing from the vanitas paintings of the Netherlands and the spare arrangements of Spain. The 18th century to a large extent continued to refine 17th-century formulae, and levels of production decreased. In the Rococo style floral decoration became far more common on porcelain , wallpaper , fabrics and carved wood furnishings, so that buyers preferred their paintings to have figures for

8340-809: The Unicorn is the best-known example, designed in Paris around 1500 and then woven in Flanders . The development of oil painting technique by Jan van Eyck and other Northern European artists made it possible to paint everyday objects in this hyper-realistic fashion, owing to the slow drying, mixing, and layering qualities of oil colours. Among the first to break free of religious meaning were Leonardo da Vinci , who created watercolour studies of fruit (around 1495) as part of his restless examination of nature, and Albrecht Dürer who also made precise coloured drawings of flora and fauna. Petrus Christus ' portrait of

8479-608: The addition of increasingly thick layers one over another (known by painters as ‘fat over lean’). Also, oil colors dry more slowly, allowing the artist to make changes readily, such as altering facial details. Antonello da Messina was one of the first Italians to take advantage of oil. Trained in Belgium, he settled in Venice around 1475, and was a major influence on Giovanni Bellini and the Northern Italian school. During

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8618-518: The afterlife, become real and available for use by the deceased. Ancient Greek vase paintings also demonstrate great skill in depicting everyday objects and animals. Peiraikos is mentioned by Pliny the Elder as a panel painter of "low" subjects, such as survive in mosaic versions and provincial wall-paintings at Pompeii : "barbers' shops, cobblers' stalls, asses, eatables and similar subjects". Similar still life, more simply decorative in intent, but with realistic perspective, have also been found in

8757-399: The artist decide entirely. Oliver Cromwell famously demanded that his portrait show "all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it." After putting the sitter at ease and encouraging a natural pose, the artist studies his subject, looking for the one facial expression, out of many possibilities, that satisfies his concept of

8896-471: The attention of the Royal Académie and the numerous collectors who purchased her paintings. This interaction between art and nature was quite common in Dutch , Flemish and French still lifes. Her work reveals the clear influence of Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin , as well as 17th-century Dutch masters, whose work has been far more highly valued, but what made Vallayer-Coster's style stand out against

9035-613: The borders often featured elaborate displays of flowers, insects and, in a work like the Hours of Catherine of Cleves , a great variety of objects. When the illuminated manuscript was displaced by the printed book, the same skills were later deployed in scientific botanical illustration; the Low Countries led Europe in both botany and its depiction in art. The Flemish artist Joris Hoefnagel (1542–1601) made watercolour and gouache paintings of flowers and other still-life subjects for

9174-434: The burgeoning interest in natural illustration throughout Europe, resulted in the nearly simultaneous creation of modern still-life paintings around 1600. At the turn of the century the Spanish painter Juan Sánchez Cotán pioneered the Spanish still life with austerely tranquil paintings of vegetables, before entering a monastery in his forties in 1603, after which he painted religious subjects. Prominent Academicians of

9313-600: The butterfly represents transformation and resurrection while the dragonfly symbolizes transience and the ant hard work and attention to the harvest. Flemish and Dutch artists also branched out and revived the ancient Greek still life tradition of trompe-l'œil , particularly the imitation of nature or mimesis , which they termed bedriegertje ("little deception"). In addition to these types of still life, Dutch artists identified and separately developed "kitchen and market" paintings, breakfast and food table still life, vanitas paintings, and allegorical collection paintings. In

9452-507: The centuries. Northern European artists led the way in realistic portraits of secular subjects. The greater realism and detail of the Northern artists during the 15th century was due in part to the finer brush strokes and effects possible with oil colors , while the Italian and Spanish painters were still using tempera . Among the earliest painters to develop oil technique was Jan van Eyck . Oil colors can produce more texture and grades of thickness, and can be layered more effectively, with

9591-685: The civil guards to which he belonged. Rembrandt benefitted greatly from such commissions and from the general appreciation of art by bourgeois clients, who supported portraiture as well as still-life and landscapes painting. In addition, the first significant art and dealer markets flourished in Holland at that time. With plenty of demand, Rembrandt was able to experiment with unconventional composition and technique, such as chiaroscuro . He demonstrated these innovations, pioneered by Italian masters such as Caravaggio , most notably in his famous Night Watch (1642). The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp (1632)

9730-599: The classification of specimens. Natural objects began to be appreciated as individual objects of study apart from any religious or mythological associations. The early science of herbal remedies began at this time as well, which was a practical extension of this new knowledge. In addition, wealthy patrons began to underwrite the collection of animal and mineral specimens, creating extensive cabinets of curiosities . These specimens served as models for painters who sought realism and novelty. Shells, insects, exotic fruits and flowers began to be collected and traded, and new plants such as

9869-453: The commission without being paid, suffering the humiliation of failure. Jacques-Louis David celebrated Portrait of Madame Récamier , wildly popular in exhibitions, was rejected by the sitter, as was John Singer Sargent 's notorious Portrait of Madame X . John Trumbull 's full-length portrait, General George Washington at Trenton , was rejected by the committee that commissioned it. The famously prickly Gilbert Stuart once replied to

10008-478: The commissioner. In religious paintings, portraits of donors began to be shown as present, or participate in the main sacred scenes shown, and in more private court images subjects even appeared as significant figures such as the Virgin Mary . If the poet says that he can inflame men with love… the painter has the power to do the same… in that he can place in front of the lover the true likeness of one who

10147-438: The complexity of group portraits. Rococo artists, who were particularly interested in rich and intricate ornamentation, were masters of the refined portrait. Their attention to the details of dress and texture increased the efficacy of portraits as testaments to worldly wealth, as evidenced by François Boucher 's famous portraits of Madame de Pompadour attired in billowing silk gowns. The first major native portrait painters of

10286-467: The course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. During these centuries, the genre of still life was placed lowest on the hierarchical ladder. Vallayer-Coster had a way about her paintings that resulted in their attractiveness. It was the "bold, decorative lines of her compositions, the richness of her colours and simulated textures, and the feats of illusionism she achieved in depicting wide variety of objects, both natural and artificial" which drew in

10425-579: The declining state of Roman portrait art, "The painting of portraits which used to transmit through the ages the accurate likenesses of people, has entirely gone out…Indolence has destroyed the arts." These full-face portraits from Roman Egypt are fortunate exceptions. They present a somewhat realistic sense of proportion and individual detail (though the eyes are generally oversized and the artistic skill varies considerably from artist to artist). The Fayum portraits were painted on wood or ivory in wax and resin colors (encaustic) or with tempera , and inserted into

10564-412: The earlier still-life subjects of Chardin , Édouard Manet 's still-life paintings are strongly tonal and clearly headed toward Impressionism. Henri Fantin-Latour , using a more traditional technique, was famous for his exquisite flower paintings and made his living almost exclusively painting still life for collectors. However, it was not until the final decline of the Academic hierarchy in Europe, and

10703-908: The early 17th century, such as Andrea Sacchi , felt that genre and still-life painting did not carry the "gravitas" merited for painting to be considered great. An influential formulation of 1667 by André Félibien , a historiographer, architect and theoretician of French classicism became the classic statement of the theory of the hierarchy of genres for the 18th century: Celui qui fait parfaitement des païsages est au-dessus d'un autre qui ne fait que des fruits, des fleurs ou des coquilles. Celui qui peint des animaux vivants est plus estimable que ceux qui ne représentent que des choses mortes & sans mouvement ; & comme la figure de l'homme est le plus parfait ouvrage de Dieu sur la Terre, il est certain aussi que celui qui se rend l'imitateur de Dieu en peignant des figures humaines, est beaucoup plus excellent que tous les autres ... He who produces perfect landscapes

10842-514: The early 20th century. Adapting Cézanne's shifting of planes and axes, the Cubists subdued the colour palette of the Fauves and focused instead on deconstructing objects into pure geometrical forms and planes. Between 1910 and 1920, Cubist artists like Pablo Picasso , Georges Braque , and Juan Gris painted many still-life compositions, often including musical instruments, bringing still life to

10981-487: The end of the century, the first oil portraits of contemporary individuals, painted on small wood panels, emerged in Burgundy and France, first as profiles, then in other views. The Wilton Diptych of ca. 1400 is one of two surviving panel portraits of Richard II of England , the earliest English king for whom we have contemporary examples. At the end of the Middle Ages in the 15th century, Early Netherlandish painting

11120-435: The extra effort. These were among many still-life paintings in the cardinal's collection, in addition to his large collection of curios. Among other Italian still life, Bernardo Strozzi 's The Cook is a "kitchen scene" in the Dutch manner, which is both a detailed portrait of a cook and the game birds she is preparing. In a similar manner, one of Rembrandt's rare still-life paintings, Little Girl with Dead Peacocks combines

11259-559: The first Italian artists to add allegorical symbols to their secular portraits. One of best-known portraits in the Western world is Leonardo da Vinci 's painting entitled Mona Lisa , named for Lisa del Giocondo , a member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany and the wife of wealthy Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo. The famous "Mona Lisa smile" is an excellent example of applying subtle asymmetry to

11398-454: The first rank, and artists like Holbein were in demand by English patrons. His painting of Sir Thomas More (1527), his first important patron in England, has nearly the realism of a photograph. Holbein made his great success painting the royal family, including Henry VIII . Dürer was an outstanding draftsman and one of the first major artists to make a sequence of self-portraits, including

11537-597: The flower paintings were futile to her career. Nevertheless, this collection contained floral studies in oil, watercolour and gouache . With the rise of the European Academies, most notably the Académie française which held a central role in Academic art , still life began to fall from favor. The Academies taught the doctrine of the " Hierarchy of genres " (or "Hierarchy of Subject Matter"), which held that

11676-503: The forefront of artistic innovation, almost for the first time. Still life was also the subject matter in the first Synthetic Cubist collage works, such as Picasso's oval "Still Life with Chair Caning" (1912). In these works, still-life objects overlap and intermingle, barely maintaining identifiable two-dimensional forms, losing individual surface texture, and merging into the background—achieving goals nearly opposite to those of traditional still life. Fernand Léger 's still life introduced

11815-461: The foreground, while a background scene conveys the dangers of drunkenness and lechery. The type of very large kitchen or market scene developed by Pieter Aertsen and his nephew Joachim Beuckelaer typically depicts an abundance of food with a kitchenware still life and burly Flemish kitchen-maids. A small religious scene can often be made out in the distance, or a theme such as the Four Seasons

11954-650: The form of fictional niches on religious wall paintings which depicted everyday objects. Through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance , still life in Western art remained primarily an adjunct to Christian religious subjects, and convened religious and allegorical meaning. This was particularly true in the work of Northern European artists, whose fascination with highly detailed optical realism and symbolism led them to lavish great attention on their paintings' overall message. Painters like Jan van Eyck often used still-life elements as part of an iconographic program. In

12093-525: The genre further. Originally serving a devotional function, garland paintings became extremely popular and were widely used as decoration of homes. A special genre of still life was the so-called pronkstilleven (Dutch for 'ostentatious still life'). This style of ornate still-life painting was developed in the 1640s in Antwerp by Flemish artists such as Frans Snyders and Adriaen van Utrecht . They painted still lifes that emphasized abundance by depicting

12232-595: The genre was the tradition, mostly centred on Antwerp , of the "monumental still life", which were large paintings that included great spreads of still-life material with figures and often animals. This was a development by Pieter Aertsen , whose A Meat Stall with the Holy Family Giving Alms (1551, now Uppsala ) introduced the type with a painting that still startles. Another example is "The Butcher Shop" by Aertsen's nephew Joachim Beuckelaer (1568), with its realistic depiction of raw meats dominating

12371-519: The growing Dutch middle classes, who were replacing Church and State as the principal patrons of art in the Netherlands. Added to this was the Dutch mania for horticulture, particularly the tulip . These two views of flowers—as aesthetic objects and as religious symbols— merged to create a very strong market for this type of still life. Still life, like most Dutch art work, was generally sold in open markets or by dealers, or by artists at their studios, and rarely commissioned; therefore, artists usually chose

12510-461: The guise of ancient philosophers. It was not the first group portrait of artists. Decades earlier, Paolo Uccello had painted a group portrait including Giotto , Donatello , Antonio Manetti , and Brunelleschi . As he rose in prominence, Raphael became a favorite portraitist of the popes. While many Renaissance artists eagerly accepted portrait commissions, a few artists refused them, most notably Raphael's rival Michelangelo , who instead undertook

12649-407: The head. The subject's head may turn from " full face " (front view) to profile view (side view); a " three-quarter view " ("two-thirds view") is somewhere in between, ranging from almost frontal to almost profile (the fraction is the sum of the profile [one-half of the face] plus the other side's "quarter-face"; alternatively, it is quantified 2 ⁄ 3 , also meaning this partial view

12788-406: The home or to travel easily with the client. Frequently, an artist takes into account where the final portrait will hang and the colors and style of the surrounding décor. Creating a portrait can take considerable time, usually requiring several sittings. Cézanne, on one extreme, insisted on over 100 sittings from his subject. Goya on the other hand, preferred one long day's sitting. The average

12927-487: The huge commissions of the Sistine Chapel . In Venice around 1500, Gentile Bellini and Giovanni Bellini dominated portrait painting. They received the highest commissions from the leading officials of the state. Bellini's portrait of Doge Loredan is considered to be one of the finest portraits of the Renaissance and ably demonstrates the artist's mastery of the newly arrived techniques of oil painting. Bellini

13066-542: The individualized busts of Hellenistic rulers on coins, show that Greek portraiture could achieve a good likeness, and subjects, at least of literary figures, were depicted with relatively little flattery – Socrates' portraits show why he had a reputation for being ugly. The successors of Alexander the Great began the practice of adding his head (as a deified figure) to their coins, and were soon using their own. Roman portraiture adopted traditions of portraiture from both

13205-540: The largest group of painted portraits are the funeral paintings that survived in the dry climate of Egypt's Fayum district (see illustration, below), dating from the 2nd to 4th century AD. These are almost the only paintings of the Roman period that have survived, aside from frescos , though it is known from the writings of Pliny the Elder that portrait painting was well established in Greek times, and practiced by both men and women artists. In his times, Pliny complained of

13344-633: The late Middle Ages, still-life elements, mostly flowers but also animals and sometimes inanimate objects, were painted with increasing realism in the borders of illuminated manuscripts , developing models and technical advances that were used by painters of larger images. There was considerable overlap between the artists making miniatures for manuscripts and those painting panels, especially in Early Netherlandish painting . The Hours of Catherine of Cleves , probably made in Utrecht around 1440,

13483-574: The leading specialists, Jan Brueghel the Elder and Ambrosius Bosschaert , both active in the Southern Netherlands. While artists in the North found limited opportunity to produce the religious iconography which had long been their staple—images of religious subjects were forbidden in the Dutch Reformed Protestant Church —the continuing Northern tradition of detailed realism and hidden symbols appealed to

13622-577: The many expressions of the human face, especially as one of the premier self-portraitists (of which he painted over 60 in his lifetime). This interest in the human face also fostered the creation of the first caricatures, credited to the Accademia degli Incamminati , run by painters of the Carracci family in the late 16th century in Bologna, Italy. Group portraits were produced in great numbers during

13761-414: The moral or religious character of the subject, or with symbols representing the sitter's occupation, interests, or social status. The background can be totally black and without content or a full scene which places the sitter in their social or recreational milieu. Self-portraits are usually produced with the help of a mirror, and the finished result is a mirror-image portrait, a reversal of what occurs in

13900-425: The moralistic vanitas message of their Dutch predecessors. The Rococo love of artifice led to a rise in appreciation in France for trompe-l'œil (French: "trick the eye") painting. Jean-Baptiste Chardin 's still-life paintings employ a variety of techniques from Dutch-style realism to softer harmonies. The bulk of Anne Vallayer-Coster 's work was devoted to the language of still life as it had been developed in

14039-407: The most famous and enigmatic group portraits of all time. It memorializes the artist and the children of the Spanish royal family, and apparently the sitters are the royal couple who are seen only as reflections in a mirror. Starting out as primarily a genre painter, Velázquez quickly rose to prominence as the court painter of Philip IV , excelling in the art of portraiture, particularly in extending

14178-499: The mummy wrapping, to remain with the body through eternity. While free-standing portrait painting diminished in Rome, the art of the portrait flourished in Roman sculptures, where sitters demanded realism, even if unflattering. During the 4th century, the sculpted portrait dominated, with a retreat in favor of an idealized symbol of what that person looked like. (Compare the portraits of Roman Emperors Constantine I and Theodosius I ) In

14317-443: The newly developed technique of oil painting pioneered by van Eyck, which revolutionized art, and spread throughout Europe. Leading German portrait artists including Lucas Cranach , Albrecht Dürer , and Hans Holbein the Younger who all mastered oil painting technique. Cranach was one of the first artists to paint life-sized full-length commissions, a tradition popular from then on. At that time, England had no portrait painters of

14456-1106: The nostalgic wall-rack painting while Harnett achieved the highest level of hyper-realism in his pictorial celebrations of American life through familiar objects. The first four decades of the 20th century formed an exceptional artistic ferment and revolution period. Avant-garde movements rapidly evolved and overlapped in a march towards nonfigurative, total abstraction. The still life and other representational art continued to evolve and adjust until mid-century when total abstraction, as exemplified by Jackson Pollock 's drip paintings, eliminated all recognizable content. The century began with several trends taking hold in art. In 1901, Paul Gauguin painted Still Life with Sunflowers , his homage to his friend Van Gogh who had died eleven years earlier. The group known as Les Nabis , including Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard , took up Gauguin's harmonic theories and added elements inspired by Japanese woodcuts to their still-life paintings. French artist Odilon Redon also painted notable still life during this period, especially flowers. Henri Matisse reduced

14595-406: The objects depicted. Later still-life works are produced with a variety of media and technology, such as found objects, photography, computer graphics , as well as video and sound. The term includes the painting of dead animals, especially game. Live ones are considered animal art , although in practice they were often painted from dead models. Because of the use of plants and animals as a subject,

14734-493: The other still-life painters was her unique way of coalescing representational illusionism with decorative compositional structures. The end of the eighteenth century and the fall of the French monarchy closed the doors on Vallayer-Coster's still-life 'era' and opened them to her new style of florals. It has been argued that this was the highlight of her career and what she is best known for. However, it has also been argued that

14873-566: The painting himself) while Gainsborough rarely did. Sometimes a client would extract a pledge from the artist, as did Sir Richard Newdegate from portraitist Peter Lely (van Dyck's successor in England), who promised that the portrait would be "from the Beginning to ye end drawne with my owne hands." Unlike the exactitude employed by the Flemish masters, Reynolds summed up his approach to portraiture by stating that, "the grace, and, we may add,

15012-414: The painting of symbolic flowers in vases on the back of secular portraits around 1475. Jacopo de' Barbari went a step further with his Still Life with Partridge and Gauntlets (1504), among the earliest signed and dated trompe-l'œil still-life paintings, which contains minimal religious content. Though most still lifes after 1600 were relatively small paintings, a crucial stage in the development of

15151-423: The perfect vehicle for his revolutionary explorations in geometric spatial organization. For Cézanne, still life was a primary means of taking painting away from an illustrative or mimetic function to one demonstrating independently the elements of colour, form, and line, a major step towards Abstract art . Additionally, Cézanne's experiments can be seen as leading directly to the development of Cubist still life in

15290-624: The period of Akhenaten in the 14th century BC. Portrait painting of notables in China probably goes back to over 1000 BC, though none survive from that age. Existing Chinese portraits go back to about 1000 AD, but did not place much emphasis on likeness until some time after that. From literary evidence we know that ancient Greek painting included portraiture, often highly accurate if the praises of writers are to be believed, but no painted examples remain. Sculpted heads of rulers and famous personalities like Socrates survive in some quantity, and like

15429-469: The place one looks for the most complete, reliable, and pertinent information" about the subject. And the eyebrows can register, "almost single-handedly, wonder, pity, fright, pain, cynicism, concentration, wistfulness, displeasure, and expectation, in infinite variations and combinations." Portrait painting can depict the subject " full-length " (the whole body), " half-length " (from head to waist or hips ), " head and shoulders " ( bust ), or just

15568-414: The principal apprentices. There were even outside specialists who handled specific items such as drapery and clothing, such as Joseph van Aken Some artists in past times used lay-figures or dolls to help establish and execute the pose and the clothing. The use of symbolic elements placed around the sitter (including signs, household objects, animals, and plants) was often used to encode the painting with

15707-461: The realism of still-life painting is related in the ancient Greek legend of Zeuxis and Parrhasius , who are said to have once competed to create the most lifelike objects, history's earliest descriptions of trompe-l'œil painting. As Pliny the Elder recorded in ancient Roman times, Greek artists centuries earlier were already advanced in the arts of portrait painting , genre painting and still life. He singled out Peiraikos , "whose artistry

15846-474: The relatively few Italian works in the style, Annibale Carracci 's treatment of the same subject in 1583, Butcher's Shop , begins to remove the moral messages, as did other "kitchen and market" still-life paintings of this period. Vincenzo Campi probably introduced the Antwerp style to Italy in the 1570s. The tradition continued into the next century, with several works by Rubens , who mostly sub-contracted

15985-550: The rendering of still-life objects even further to little more than bold, flat outlines filled with bright colours. He also simplified perspective and introduced multi-colour backgrounds. In some of his still-life paintings, such as Still Life with Eggplants , his table of objects is nearly lost amidst the other colourful patterns filling the rest of the room. Other exponents of Fauvism , such as Maurice de Vlaminck and André Derain , further explored pure colour and abstraction in their still life. Paul Cézanne found in still life

16124-656: The rise of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters, that technique and colour harmony triumphed over subject matter, and that still life was once again avidly practiced by artists. In his early still life, Claude Monet shows the influence of Fantin-Latour, but is one of the first to break the tradition of the dark background, which Pierre-Auguste Renoir also discards in Still Life with Bouquet and Fan (1871), with its bright orange background. With Impressionist still life, allegorical and mythological content

16263-656: The shadows and the lights, the face is given greater relief. Leonardo was a student of Verrocchio . After becoming a member of the Guild of Painters, he began to accept independent commissions. Owing to his wide-ranging interests and in accordance with his scientific mind, his output of drawings and preliminary studies is immense though his finished artistic output is relatively small. His other memorable portraits included those of noblewomen Ginevra de’ Benci and Cecilia Gallerani . Raphael's surviving commission portraits are far more numerous than those of Leonardo, and they display

16402-401: The sitter to the point of diminishing the reality of physical appearance. One of the best portraitists of 16th-century Italy was Sofonisba Anguissola from Cremona, who infused her individual and group portraits with new levels of complexity. Court portraiture in France began when Flemish artist Jean Clouet painted his opulent likeness of Francis I of France around 1525. King Francis was

16541-400: The sitter's essence. The posture of the subject is also carefully considered to reveal the emotional and physical state of the sitter, as is the costume. To keep the sitter engaged and motivated, the skillful artist will often maintain a pleasant demeanor and conversation. Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun advised fellow artists to flatter women and compliment their appearance to gain their cooperation at

16680-429: The sitting. Central to the successful execution of the portrait is a mastery of human anatomy . Human faces are asymmetrical and skillful portrait artists reproduce this with subtle left-right differences. Artists need to be knowledgeable about the underlying bone and tissue structure to make a convincing portrait. For complex compositions, the artist may first do a complete pencil, ink, charcoal, or oil sketch which

16819-536: The skills of painters of the miniatures in illuminated manuscripts . Profile portraits, inspired by ancient medallions, were particularly popular in Italy between 1450 and 1500. Medals, with their two–sided images, also inspired a short-lived vogue for two-sided paintings early in the Renaissance. Classical sculpture, such as the Apollo Belvedere , also influenced the choice of poses used by Renaissance portraitists, poses that have continued in use through

16958-480: The still-life and animal elements to specialist masters such as Frans Snyders and his pupil Jan Fyt . By the second half of the 16th century, the autonomous still life evolved. The 16th century witnessed an explosion of interest in the natural world and the creation of lavish botanical encyclopædias recording the discoveries of the New World and Asia. It also prompted the beginning of scientific illustration and

17097-443: The still-life artform is that it allows an artist much freedom to experiment with the arrangement of elements within a composition of a painting. Still life, as a particular genre, began with Netherlandish painting of the 16th and 17th centuries, and the English term still life derives from the Dutch word stilleven . Early still-life paintings, particularly before 1700, often contained religious and allegorical symbolism relating to

17236-504: The still-life category also shares commonalities with zoological and especially botanical illustration . However, with visual or fine art, the work is not intended merely to illustrate the subject correctly. Still life occupied the lowest rung of the hierarchy of genres , but has been extremely popular with buyers. As well as the independent still-life subject, still-life painting encompasses other types of painting with prominent still-life elements, usually symbolic, and "images that rely on

17375-429: The subject (from the artist's point of view) or a flattering representation, not just a literal likeness. As Aristotle stated, "The aim of Art is to present not the outward appearance of things, but their inner significance; for this, not the external manner and detail, constitutes true reality." Artists may strive for photographic realism or an impressionistic similarity in depicting their subject, but this differs from

17514-831: The subject matter and arrangement. So popular was this type of still-life painting, that much of the technique of Dutch flower painting was codified in the 1740 treatise Groot Schilderboeck by Gerard de Lairesse, which gave wide-ranging advice on colour, arranging, brushwork, preparation of specimens, harmony, composition, perspective, etc. The symbolism of flowers had evolved since early Christian days. The most common flowers and their symbolic meanings include: rose (Virgin Mary, transience, Venus, love); lily (Virgin Mary, virginity, female breast, purity of mind or justice); tulip (showiness, nobility); sunflower (faithfulness, divine love, devotion); violet (modesty, reserve, humility); columbine (melancholy); poppy (power, sleep, death). As for insects,

17653-622: The subject. Portraits often serve as important state and family records, as well as remembrances. Historically, portrait paintings have primarily memorialized the rich and powerful. Over time, however, it became more common for middle-class patrons to commission portraits of their families and colleagues. Today, portrait paintings are still commissioned by governments, corporations, groups, clubs, and individuals. In addition to painting, portraits can also be made in other media such as prints (including etching and lithography ), photography , video and digital media . It may seem obvious today that

17792-534: The textures of fur and feather with simple backgrounds, often the plain white of a lime-washed larder wall, that showed them off to advantage. By the 18th century, in many cases, the religious and allegorical connotations of still-life paintings were dropped and kitchen table paintings evolved into calculated depictions of varied colour and form, displaying everyday foods. The French aristocracy employed artists to execute paintings of bounteous and extravagant still-life subjects that graced their dining table, also without

17931-484: The traditional Dutch table still life. In England Eliot Hodgkin was using tempera for his highly detailed still-life paintings. Portrait painting Portrait painting is a genre in painting , where the intent is to represent a specific human subject. The term 'portrait painting' can also describe the actual painted portrait. Portraitists may create their work by commission, for public and private persons, or they may be inspired by admiration or affection for

18070-437: The upper class might enjoy and a religious reminder to avoid gluttony. Around 1650 Samuel van Hoogstraten painted one of the first wall-rack pictures, trompe-l'œil still-life paintings which feature objects tied, tacked or attached in some other fashion to a wall board, a type of still life very popular in the United States in the 19th century. Another variation was the trompe-l'œil still life depicted objects associated with

18209-512: The use of abundant white space and coloured, sharply defined, overlapping geometrical shapes to produce a more mechanical effect. Rejecting the flattening of space by Cubists, Marcel Duchamp and other members of the Dada movement, went in a radically different direction, creating 3-D "ready-made" still-life sculptures. As part of restoring some symbolic meaning to still life, the Futurists and

18348-502: The viewer – integrates with the setting in which she is placed to convey the artist's interpretation. Among the other possible variables, the subject can be clothed or nude; indoors or out; standing, seated, reclining; even horse-mounted. Portrait paintings can be of individuals, couples, parents and children, families, or collegial groups. They can be created in various media including oils , watercolor , pen and ink , pencil , charcoal , pastel , and mixed media . Artists may employ

18487-471: The works of Agnolo Bronzino and Jacopo da Pontormo . Bronzino made his fame portraying the Medici family. His daring portrait of Cosimo I de' Medici , shows the austere ruler in armor with a wary eye gazed to his extreme right, in sharp contrast to most royal paintings which show their sitters as benign sovereigns. El Greco , who trained in Venice for twelve years, went in a more extreme direction after his arrival in Spain, emphasizing his "inner vision" of

18626-528: Was a courtier, diplomat, art collector, and successful businessman. His studio was one of the most extensive of that time, employing specialists in still-life, landscape, animal and genre scenes, in addition to portraiture. Van Dyck trained there for two years. Charles I of England first employed Rubens, then imported van Dyck as his court painter, knighting him and bestowing on him courtly status. Van Dyck not only adapted Rubens’ production methods and business skills, but also his elegant manners and appearance. As

18765-410: Was enormous, and they were very widely exported, especially to northern Europe; Britain hardly produced any itself. German still life followed closely the Dutch models; Georg Flegel was a pioneer in pure still life without figures and created the compositional innovation of placing detailed objects in cabinets, cupboards, and display cases, and producing simultaneous multiple views. In Spanish art ,

18904-437: Was far more popular in the contemporary Low Countries , today Belgium and Netherlands (then Flemish and Dutch artists), than it ever was in southern Europe. Northern still lifes had many subgenres; the breakfast piece was augmented by the trompe-l'œil , the flower bouquet , and the vanitas . In Spain there were much fewer patrons for this sort of thing, but a type of breakfast piece did become popular, featuring

19043-528: Was initially much scarcer than wood. Early on, the Northern Europeans abandoned the profile, and started producing portraits of realistic volume and perspective. In the Netherlands, Jan van Eyck was a leading portraitist. The Arnolfini Marriage (1434, National Gallery , London) is a landmark of Western art, an early example of a full-length couple portrait, superbly painted in rich colors and exquisite detail. But equally important, it showcases

19182-443: Was key to the development of the individualized portrait. Masters included Jan van Eyck , Robert Campin and Rogier van der Weyden , among others. Rather small panel painting portraits, less than half life-size, were commissioned, not only of figures from the court, but what appear from their relatively plain dress to be wealthy townspeople. Miniatures in illuminated manuscripts also included individualized portraits, usually of

19321-569: Was recorded, "He always went magnificently dress’d, had a numerous and gallant equipage, and kept so noble a table in his apartment, that few princes were not more visited, or better serv’d." In France, Hyacinthe Rigaud dominated in much the same way, as a remarkable chronicler of royalty, painting the portraits of five French kings. One of the innovations of Renaissance art was the improved rendering of facial expressions to accompany different emotions. In particular, Dutch painter Rembrandt explored

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