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Paintings that capture people’s souls
The painted portrait remains a highly valued genre, especially by artists, for a select and very specific public.
At first, many centuries ago, it was monarchs and emperors who, in their craving to remain intact and remembered despite the passage of time, had their portraits painted by the great masters of the time. The history books recount how most artists of renown have flirted with the genre. Only Michelangelo, they say, refrained from this popular form.
Later, with the advent of the Renaissance, the portrait spread from royal palaces to the moneyed bourgeoisie. Having an individual or full family portrait was a token of power and distinction. And it still is. For, as acknowledged by the Spanish portrait artist Daniel González Poblete (1944), the commissions for this type of painting still come from the higher social classes. Because of their price, but also because of tradition.
Realism and Hyperrealism set the trend
Poblete, who began aged 15 as a copy artist in the Prado, has been painting portraits all his life. He agrees that he has learned from the great masters whose works hang from the walls of Madrid’s chief art gallery. A member of the Realist movement, he gives prime importance to hands and faces. He says that in recent years he has noticed a certain trend towards Hyperrealism, a school that emerged in the 60s in the US and which takes Realism a step further. In Spain, for example, one of its main exponents is Antonio López.
But this painter from La Mancha explains that, despite the trend to Hyperrealism, all styles are employed. “Everything is as it always was. What people want is for the painting to look like them,” he says. Hence he remains true to his style.
With such a small and specific public, it is hard for artist painters to devote themselves solely to portraiture. Such is the view of the Sokoa gallery. Accordingly few artists opt to work in this genre only. There are cases such as Poblete or Ricardo Sanz in Spain, who are consolidated figures. But even they work in other fields as well as portrait-painting.
Famous portraits by popular artists
The most famous portrait is without doubt Leonardo da Vinci’s mysterious Gioconda.
John Howard Sanden, the renowned American portrait artist, includes Van Dyck, Rembrant and Velázquez among the world’s portrait artists that he rates most highly. But there are many who have gone down in history. Some with self-portraits, as in the cases of Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso.
As Ángeles Martín Valbuena, professor at Saint Louis University, explained to The Best of the World, choosing just a few from such a wide range of styles is not easy. She selected 10 of her favourites, but she could have “chosen 50”. From her list it is apparent that though trueness to the subject is the prevailing feature – past and present – there are also cases of great historic portraits for which imagination is required to see the resemblance. The examples by Juan Gris and Picasso are the best exponents of this.
Enlaces de interés
•www.johnhowardsanden.com
•www.galeriasokoa.com
•http://ricardosanz.com
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Published in Hobbies and Collecting by M. J. Arias on 01/05/2010
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