Painting Portraits Anthony Connolly Copyright First published in 2011 by The Crowood Press Ltd, Ramsbury, Marlborough, Wiltshire, SN8 2HR www.crowood.com This e-book edition first published in 2013 © Anthony Connolly 2011 All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly. ISBN 978 1 84797 504 1 For Coleman and Bridget CONTENTS Title Page Copyright 1. INTRODUCTION 2. MATERIALS 3. DRAWING TO PAINT 4. PAINTING A PORTRAIT - 1 5. PAINTING A PORTRAIT - 2 6. THE SELF-PORTRAIT 7. COPYING 8. PHOTOGRAPHY AND PORTRAITURE 9. SOME PORTRAIT PAINTERS Afterword Further Reading Acknowledgements Index Magdalen, 2003 (oil on canvas). CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ‘It’s not as if an instinct which lies in the race of men from way before Sassetta and Giotto has run its course. It won’t. Don’t listen to the fools who say that pictures of people can be of no consequence …’ R.B. Kitaj What Is Portraiture? Our ideas about portraiture are probably rooted in a period that begins in the late middle ages and continues until the end of the seventeenth century. This period saw the revival of the individualized, au vif, portrayal of the powerful, influential and successful. The seventeenth century was the era of Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens and Diego Velázquez, and of the most exquisite painting from life. By the nineteenth century, the portrait is very often, although of course not always, a solid signal of status. Like much Victoriana, such paintings are usually highly crafted, over-engineered even. They can be so well-finished that sometimes one feels the paint has been polished up to produce pure alabaster and the sitter, in consequence, is petrified. In the twentieth century, Modernism set off in pursuit of the interior. Inner truths were sought, unlikely and unfamiliar faces, gathered in from Africa or found in doodles, acquired resonance. ‘Unlikeness’ became valued and portraiture, which really exists only to represent likeness, waned as a result. That we should still be making and cherishing painted portraits, then, is something of a conundrum. The annual BP Portrait Award exhibition, hosted by the National Portrait Gallery in London, is one of the highlights of the popular cultural year. The annual exhibition of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters at the Mall Galleries, also in London, draws thousands of visitors. These shows may not attract quite the same glare of media attention as the Turner Prize, but my impression is that the actual footfall is probably greater. Portrait painting doesn’t just survive; it thrives. It persists through all the stuttering complexity of change, through the spurts of action and reaction, imitation and contradiction, through all the layering of new and newer technologies. Through turmoil and fashion, people keep making, and sitting for, painted portraits. Robert Campin, Portrait of a Fat Man (Robert de Masmines), 1425–30. In Europe, recognizably individual portraits date back to the early fifteenth century (although they were possibly not described as portraits until the sixteenth century). Robert Campin’s Portrait of a Fat Man (Robert de Masmines), 1425–30, is an example of the closely observed likeness that still characterizes much contemporary portraiture. There is no attempt to idealize; Robert de Masmines has a fleshy, unbecoming gaze.