Portraiture as an Outdated and Irrelevant Art Practice: John Berger's Essay "The Changing View of Man in the Portrait"

John Berger wrote a paper in 1967 which condemns the practice of portraiture (p98).  In Berger's essay, the portrait has lost its relevance because of the rise of photography (ibid), a technology which captured the look of things quickly and cheaply, as well as portraiture's failure you get to the essence of its subject (p99), the decline in the value people today place on social roles (p101), the modern conception of the individual and identity (ibid), and the static nature of two-dimensional representation (p102).  These criticisms of Berger's can explain the nature of the demise of the traditional portrait, but does not rule out the opportunities for developments in portrait painting and the value which such developments could provide.

More and more, photography has become a tool in the production of art-making, at the levels of subject studies and also in mixed media art practices which involve painting.

Also Berger's account states that portraiture fails to get to the essence of the subject it targets.  In saying this he states that "ninety-nine percent" of portraits lack a "psychological insight" (p98).  Though the  number seems arbitrary it describes a large non-specific proportion of portrait painting which carries within it a lack of insight of the subject.  Implicit with this line of thought is that a small proportion of the overall portraits painted contain a psychological insight.  The term psychological insight immediately highlights a bias of Berger's and largely the modern world's and that is toward a psychological view of the person, which is a scientific view with a tradition in medicine, psychoanalysis and experimental psychology.  So long as the portrait is viewed as requiring a psychological insight, rather than a physiological, spiritual, or philosophical insight this claim is a worthy criticism.  However, if modern culture moves away from the psychological bias toward another set of theories of self and humanity, then portrait practices could adapt and probably would.  Some portrait painters could even pre-empt or create these new biases and make portraits according to their own theories and ideologies, which would speak to an audience who can appreciate those.  Berger mentions that modern culture has moved away from a theory of self which favours the individual over the social role played by that individual (p101) which was not the case in older portraits painted in more feudal times of kings, merchants, etc.  The artist is the person who should develop theories of the individual and present these through the portrait.

Of all of Berger's reasons for the demise of portraiture the most easily remedied by today's art climate is that audiences are unable to accept that an individual can be justly represented from one angle and through their looks alone:

"We can no longer accept that the identity of a man can be adequately established by preserving and fixing what he looks like from a single viewpoint in one place.......  It seems the demands of modern vision are incompatible with the singularity of viewpoint which is the prerequisite for a static painted 'likeness'." (p102)

Since Berger wrote this paper the artworld has seen a greater proliferation in the white cube gallery space than existed in his time.  Practices of digital media, installation art, and virtual spaces online have changed the way artists produce work.  The static image can be used where appropriate, the moving image otherwise.

I am confident that there is enough precedent in the contemporary artistic vocabulary to produce portraits which contain an aesthetic experience, insight, a theory of the individual, and considers its method of representation more sensitively and less driven by convention.

Berger, John "The Changing View of Man in the Portrait" in John Berger:  Selected Essays.  Edited by Geoff Dyer, 98-102.  London, UK:  Bloomsbury Publishing, 2001.

Dennis O'Connor - Layered Studies

Above are the studies I've been working on of Dennis O'Connor, an associate of Arthur Wicks.  I've been working on these layered paintings through trial and error to get the process perfect.  Although I've made drawings like this countless times, these are among the first I've done as a process of portraiture, to capture the actual likeness of a person with this method.  The process is solid now so subsequent works will be made more directly with (hopefully) only one piece as the study.  The finished works for this series will be painted on glass.

Below is a preview of an animation I'm working on for my installation Finding Arthur Wicks, scheduled for exhibition in October.

Arthur Wick's Moving Preview from Tony Curran on Vimeo.

My First Official Art Prize

The Coolamon Up-2-Date store, located right next to Coolamon library hosted their annual art exhibition last Friday.  I submitted five of my drawings of Arthur's head.

I was awarded my first ever art prize which was the 2011 CSU Annual Perpetual Art Prize.  As a result I have begun adding zeroes to the price tags of my work.

Portrait Miniatures

Lately in the studio its been serious production time.  I've been painting away at my portrait miniatures and some larger anamorphic works of Arthur Wick's bust.  The strategy is to make a bunch of them, see which ones work and why and then tweak them to work better if need be.  The above miniatures are of two specific people:  Errol Fielder and Marilyn Thompson and from these ten or so images of each, one will be chosen for the exhibition in October.

The larger anamorphic paintings are painted over some other anamporph's which failed because they weren't gridded up from the beginning.  The result is that they pop into place when you're in the sweet spot.

Studio Update With Pretty Pictures

Errol Fielder (Study) #1, 2010.  4cm x 5cm

Errol Fielder sat for a portrait a couple of weeks ago while I drew his likeness in acrylic paint onto some canvas.  I used that drawing process to study Errol's face along with the finished drawing to help me capture Errol's likeness in a portrait miniature made of four layered pieces of acetate.  This is one of nine and currently the best one.  I am still working on the others to see if I can get a better one than this, and there are a few coming close.  The process involves thinking of the figures head structure differently to how you would draw them.  Instead the form isn't shown from tonal qualities but by empty space between the slides.  These portrait miniatures are idea for my white-cube portraiture research.

In addition to the miniatures I've been working on more anamorphic drawings of Arthur's bust from more extreme angles using longer canvases.  These works are to have the portrait literally follow the audience around the room.  The anamorphic image will work only for the people who look at it.  This means that the image won't exist other than when it is looked at, and for anyone else in the room who is not in the privileged location to see the anamorph that's showing will just see the distortion.  The angles of the anamorph also converge on the correct point of view to look at it.  As you can see if you follow the grid lines in the above image you can image that where the bottom and top line converge is the ideal place to view the undistorted image.

Two Portraits of Marilyn Thompson

Marilyn Thompson #1, 2011

Marilyn Thompson #2, 2011

Marilyn Thompson is a dearly loved Wagga Wagga artist who I discovered accidentally had been greatly influenced by Arthur under his tutelage at Charles Sturt Uni back in the day.  Apparently Arthur's printmaking processes profoundly shaped Marilyn's artmaking process subsequently, so I asked if she would sit for me to do a painting of her before she heads off (she's moving away from Wagga Wagga to live with her family). 

Although she believes Arthur might not recognise her if they passed on the street, I couldn't help but think that Marilyn reflected a side of Arthur that probably wouldn't have been represented without her in the exhibit.  I did these two portraits in the hour sitting (painted in the order shown above).  

As will happen with the rest of the portrait miniatures for the project they will be rescaled and made into portrait miniatures 5x4cm.  Currently Marilyn and Errol are the only two portrait miniatures I've begun.  I have one more person scheduled and several more to locate.

Here is some of the process work of Errol's portrait turning into a miniature on layered acetate.  You can see a number of ghoulish figures and these are all Errol.  Each part of the face is layered on one of four pieces of acetate which divides the three-dimensional information of his head in an attempt to create a likeness with what is actually very basic shapes.  In this way each layer looks kind of creepy in a similar way as if you looked at the different layers of a person's face in real life, only in this case no blood and brains.  I'm making ten because I'm expecting most of them to look nothing like Errol.  I'll pick the best one for showing.  I'm doing the same with Marilyn too.

Portrait Sitting

Arthur sat for me today in his studio. I set up easel and drew him while he digitized some of his super 8 video works.

This is Arthur in his studio office.

This is my favourite. I used my last canvas and thought I'd just throw together some last minute gestures to use as a reference for the finished portrait. The short time I spent on this helped me to get to some of the most important characteristics of Arthur's face.

Another anamorph.