Portrait Painting - The Zenith of Excellence in Painting

Portrait - The concept
A portrait is an artwork (painting, sculpture, photograph) focusing on the face or expression of a person, a group of people, or an animal. It involves a subject, an artist, and an audience.

The Types
Explaining its subject's personality, appearance, and even moods, portraits have the following types:
o Two-dimensional portrait painting
o Self-Portrait - Artist covering self
o Portrait photography
o Three dimensional portrait sculptures

The History
The earliest of portraits were those of the funerals of the Fayum district, Egypt. Soon, Greek inspired Roman sculpturing started gaining ground. By the 4th century, the real portrayal took up the swing. The Moche Civilization (100-800) of Peru was one of the oldest to indulge in portraiture. The paintings capturing kings from the early medieval period (5th-10th centuries) often did not portray their actual appearance. The historical, political, and societal context in which the ruler wanted himself to be viewed was the image portrayed, rather than the reality. Late Medieval (1300-1499) portraits are also quite 'visually' remarkable because of their composite emblematic content. The arrangement of the subject, the background images, and objects in the picture, all hinted deep connotation.

The Artists & the Artworks
The world's oldest (27,000 years) known portrait was found in 2006 in Vilhonneur grotto near Angoulême, France. The later artists were:
o Andrea del Sarto (1486 - 1531) - This Italian painter, known for intense character portrayals in his works, would play with colors, light, and shade to evoke the complicated informality and the expected expressions. His famous artworks are 'Portrait of the Artist's Wife' (Lucrezia di Baccio del Fede, the artist's wife, 1513-14), 'Madonna of the Harpies' (1517), and 'the Portrait of a Young Man' (1517).
o Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) - Rembrandt van Rijn was a Dutch painter known for his heretical use of lighting, upsetting eroticism, murky backdrops, and illumination for a three-dimensional look. 'A Bearded man in a Cap' (Late 1650s), 'An elderly Man as Saint Paul' (1659), and 'Self Portrait Open-Mouthed' (1630) are some of the key works of the artist.
o Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) - One of the best-known and controversial portraits in the Western world is Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa (1503-06), the painting of an anonymous woman. One of the most celebrated portrait artists, Leonardo was an ultimate genius. A painter, engineer, sculptor, architect, draughtsman, anatomist, astronomer, physicist, observer of life, and a great thinker, this mastermind successfully brought science and art together. 'The Last Supper' (1495-98), 'Portrait of Ginevra de Benci' (1474), and 'The Virgin of the Rocks' (1482-86) were some of his most famous works.