How to interpret the story behind a portrait?

The importance of portraiture as an art form can be seen throughout history, primarily from the fact that its origins date as far as ancient Egypt, about 5,000 years back. In the classical era the dominant form of portraiture was sculpture, but further from the Middle Ages and through Renaissance and the modern age, painted portrait prevailed as a means to immortalize both important figures and scenes of everyday life. Within European art history, portrait painting has a clearly important place, with entire museums dedicated to them. Up to the 19th century art supplies were scarce and expensive, and so only the wealthy would commission artists to do portraits of themselves and their families. With the Industrial revolution came mass production of art supplies, which meant that middle-class people could now afford to commission portraits as well.With the Social Realism movement, middle and working classes also became the focus of portraitists of the time.

Up until the 19th century, portraits were the only way to immortalize someone’s image. Portraits were never a mere visual representation of someone’s appearance. Their goal has always been to reveal more about the subject, be it about their social status, professional role, or their inner self. The most intriguing portraits are those that hide deeper meanings in less obvious details, like included objects, or the subject’s expression or pose, or the artist’s use of colour. Then again, some of the most famous portraits are those that leave some space for the viewer’s own interpretation of the meaning they carry.

Details that first strike a viewer’s eyes are usually the subject’s face expression or pose, their environment and their clothing (or lack of).

The location where the portrait is depicted can tell us about the social status of the subject, the era they lived in, or their profession.

Similarly to setting, how a person is dressed can reveal their profession or rank if they are in a uniform, the social group they belong to, or an event they’re a part of. Modest or worn-out clothes may mean that the artist wants us to understand we are looking at an ordinary unpretentious everyday man or woman, while a lady in a fancy evening gown will evoke a glamorous event. Apparel can also highlight a subject’s natural beauty, like in the example of the famous Portrait of Madame X below.

Regardless of all the surroundings, if a subject’s face in a portrait is visible, we as viewer will notice it and try to read into it. It will tell us their mood and emotional state, their age, even their character. Perhaps the most popular portrait of all times, the Mona Lisa, is so intriguing because her confident subtle smile leaves complete freedom to a viewer’s imaginative mind to interpret it according to their own imagination or mood.

Can you read confidence from a military official standing tall with their chin high ? How about a ballerina in the pirouette, doesn’t it instantly make you hear the soft sounds of the music she’s dancing to? Even in some of the famous animal portraits, their posture is the language that tells us of their elegance, freedom or distress. (-> link will lead to the article about the famous pet portraits)

If there are other objects in a portrait besides the main characters(s), you can be sure they are there for a reason. A powerful revered leader will be depicted in a fancy ornate throne and not a plain wooden chair.

Colours can be a powerful tool to convey emotions, both of the subject or of the artist. Unconventional and unrealistic colours and unusual brush strokes and painting techniques all serve to deliver a certain meaning or align the artwork with a particular art movement. (-> link to the article about the effect of colours on mood)

Similarly to how portraits tell us stories about their subjects, self-portraits can reveal a lot about the inner life of the artists who created them. Some of the most known self-portraits are those made by Frida Kahlo, Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso where they used different approaches to explore aspects of their inner life and psychology. (-> link to the article about famous self-portraits)

Even though we refer here to portrait painting, same interpretation can apply to portrait photography. All portraits tell us a story, firstly about the subject and then about the artist. Painted portraits add a touch of glamour to the scene, and significance to the portrayed person, as they remind us of the effort taken to turn the memory of them into a lasting piece of art. So, when you take your next portrait or have yours taken, think about the stories you want to the convey.

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