Chuck Close's enormous portraits created for museum display differ greatly from most portraits designed to fit in the home or to travel easily with the client. Sometimes, the overall size of the portrait is an important consideration. Charpentier and her children, 1878 or restrict themselves to mostly white or black, as with Gilbert Stuart's Portrait of George Washington (1796). Artists may employ a wide-ranging palette of colors, as with Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Mme. They can be created in various media including oils, watercolor, pen and ink, pencil, charcoal, pastel, and mixed media. Portrait paintings can be of individuals, couples, parents and children, families, or collegial groups. Charpentier and her children, 1878, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkĪmong the other possible variables, the subject can be clothed or nude indoors or out standing, seated, reclining even horse-mounted. Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World (1948) is a famous example, where the pose of the disabled woman – with her back turned to the viewer – integrates with the setting in which she is placed to convey the artist's interpretation.
There are even a few portraits where the front of the subject is not visible at all. Occasionally, artists have created composites with views from multiple directions, as with Anthony van Dyck's triple portrait of Charles I in Three Positions.
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The subject's head may turn from " full face" (front view) to profile (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 plus the other side's "quarter-face" alternatively, each side is considered a third). 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 the head. And the eyebrows can register, "almost single-handedly, wonder, pity, fright, pain, cynicism, concentration, wistfulness, displeasure, and expectation, in infinite variations and combinations." Aymar states, "the eyes are the place one looks for the most complete, reliable, and pertinent information" about the subject.
However, with the mouth relatively neutral, much of the facial expression needs to be created through the eyes and eyebrows. 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. In most cases, this results in a serious, closed lip stare, with anything beyond a slight smile being rather rare historically. 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." 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 a caricature which attempts to reveal character through exaggeration of physical features. Anthony van Dyck, Charles I in Three Positions, 1635–1636, shows profile, full face and three-quarter views, to send to Bernini in Rome, who was to sculpt a bust from this model.Ī well-executed portrait is expected to show the inner essence of the subject (from the artist's point of view) or a flattering representation, not just a literal likeness.
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