Portraits

PART 1

In this part of the blog I’ll be discussing and coving topics on portraits that span back hundreds of year ago all the way back to the near present. The portraits I’ll be talking about will mostly be old handed painted portraits; they will probably have a lot of history behind them. 

The first artist I’ll be discussing will be Hans Holbein the Younger, Holbein painted portraits for the top important people of his time including Robert Cheseman a politician, Georg Giese, and the most well-known Henry VIII. Back in the early days artists would only do portraits of very wealthy and important people, that’s why every portrait you’ll see from Hans the person looks very grand.

The portrait above was painted for German Merchant called Georg Gisze. Georg is shown among the tools of his trade: money, pen, seal, inkpots, balance, boxes, scissors, and keys. On a table covered with a rug stands a vase of carnations, perhaps symbolising his betrothal. In this photo I think Gisze comes across as pretty arrogant by his facial expressions, almost to say “what are you looking at”. Back then the different mediums that were used were coins, jars and other kind ornaments.

This Henry Viii portrait above was also painted by Hans Holbein the Younger, This portrait was created to adorn the privy chamber of Henry's newly acquired Palace of Whitehall. This portrait isn’t like a normal portrait of a European monarch. Henry is posing without a crown or sword, which is not normal for a king’s portrait. He stands proudly, directly facing the viewer. His legs are spread apart and arms held from his side in a pose like that of a warrior. Holbein would have changed what Henry looked like in reality to please him.  He’s deliberately skewed Henry's figure to make him more imposing and dominants. Also Henry's legs were much shorter in reality than in the painting. The painting also shows Henry as young and healthy; when in truth he was in his forties and had been badly injured over his years.

PART 2

Roland Barthes said in the book Camera Lucida ‘It exists only for me. For you, it would be nothing but an indifferent picture’. In the photo his mother was 5 years old at the time; she was with her brother who was 7 years old. The photo was an old photo taken in 1898. I think Roland was trying to say that with a camera in front of them people aren’t the same person; they don’t act the same. That’s why in the winter garden photo he recognised his mother because she was only young and probably didn’t understand what photography’s was; as most children don’t.

Using Paint as a medium has a few strengths, one is that you can change the sitter to looked better looking, thinner, or younger like painters did back centuries ago when they did portraits for the rich and wealthy. The weaknesses are that it could take a long time to paint and the sitter could lose health and pass away. Also with painting you can’t catch that right moment that makes a photograph that you can with photography.

The winter garden print is subjective you can tell that because that’s the reason Rolands not published it because it’s all his opinions and feelings towards it. If he decided to publish the image it probably wouldn’t have the same effect on us.

PART 3

Orlan is a French artist who lives and works in LA, New York, and Paris. She creates all sorts of works; videos, sculptures, installations, and even performance art. She is probably best known for her work with plastic surgery in the 1990s. The project, known as The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan, began in 1990 and is still ongoing today, I think. Essentially, Orlan is undergoing a series of plastic surgeries that will allow her to acquire the ideal form of female beauty as seen in the paintings of male artists. For example, is the forehead of DaVinci's Mona Lisa as seen below.

Having looked at some of Orlan's other work, which can be found below, I must say that she one of the craziest and weirdest artists I've ever seen. I've learnt the crazier and weirder you are as an artist the better. I really like Orlan's work. After researching her for this project I think she really knows how to send a message with her pieces.

PART 4

For my final piece I decided to do a self-portrait double exposure piece. Unfortunately my Camera doesn’t have a double exposure setting already on it so I had to do it myself which I really enjoyed doing. To make the photo firstly I had to have my bedroom in complete darkness so I could put my camera on a long exposure. I also set my tripod up to keep my camera in the same position while taking the photo. Once everything was set up I sat down on a chair in front of a black backdrop and pressed the shutter on a 15 second exposure. While the shutter was open I used a flash gun to flash myself looking in a straight into the camera, then, I moved my head and made a weird face while keeping my body completely still. This took a few tries but eventually I finally got the photo I wanted.