Portraits in the Baroque Era (c.1600-1740)

Art of the Baroque era (or Seicento, to Italians), including portrait art, was driven by several factors. First, the growing commercial strength of Holland, France, Spain, and Britain; second, sponsorship of the visual arts by the Catholic Church in order to heighten its influence during the Counter-Reformation; thirdly, the increased use of portable art media like canvases. In addition, Baroque portraiture benefited from the enduring influence of the Renaissance. For example in 1669, Andre Felibien, Secretary to the French Académie des Beaux-Arts, annunciated a fixed hierarchy of the genres, which was adopted by most official academies of art in Europe. Felibien ranked paintings according to their subject matter, as follows: (1) History; (2) Portrait; (3) Genre Painting; (4) Landscape; (5) Still Life. This ranking system greatly stimulated competition among portrait painters from Holland, Flanders, France, Spain and Italy.

Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1650)
by Spanish Court Painter and
Old Master, Diego Velazquez.

Baroque Portrait Artists

Among the foremost Baroque Old Masters of portraiture were: the Dutch Realist Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, whose masterpieces included: The Night Watch or The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq (1642) and Jacob Blessing the Children of Joseph (1656); the genre-painter and portraitist Jan Vermeer, whose works included: Girl with a Pearl Earring (1660) and Girl with the Red Hat (c.1665); the exuberant Catholic Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens whose historical or narrative portraits included: Samson and Delilah (c.1609); Rubens' pupil, the Antwerp painter Anthony van Dyck whose works included Portrait of Charles V on Horseback (1620) and King Charles I of England Out Hunting (1635); the prolific Dutch painter of individual and group portraits Frans Hals whose most famous picture is probably The Laughing Cavalier (1624).

Detail from Las Meninas (1656-57)
by Diego Velazquez.

Other famous artists of the period include: the Spanish master Diego Velazquez whose masterpieces include: Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1650) and his group portrait Las Meninas (1656); the ex-criminal and chiaroscuro (tenebrism) expert Caravaggio whose works include: Boy with Fruit Basket (1593), Young Sick Bacchus (1593), St Jerome' (1606); the Neapolitan artist Jose Ribera who painted Saint Paul the Hermit (1640); and Giovanni Bernini, whose magnificent sculpture (eg. The Rape of Proserpine 1621) include the portrait bust 'Scipione Borghese' (1632), considered to be a masterpiece of Baroque portraiture. Nicolas Poussin, the founder of French classical painting and one of the great academic-style artists of the Baroque period, who elevated easel-size works to the status of large-scale istoria (history) painting, executed few if any portraits, except for a small number of self-portraits.

The Laughing Cavalier (1624)
by Baroque portraitist Frans Hals.

Rise of the Professional Portrait Painter

With the establishment of portraiture as second only to history-painting in the genre hierarchy, many artists turned increasingly to portraits as a more secure way of earning a living. Among the techniques used by these professionals to enhance their artworks, and to elevate the status of the portrait and its subject, were two elements - both reflected in works by Rembrandt. First, the accumulation of figure drawing and figure painting studies depicting facial expressions. This speeded up the painting process and facilitated the depiction of a wider range of human emotions. Several of Rembrandt's self-portraits were executed as finished studies of such expressions. Second, the setting of the portrait in an historical or dramatic context, as exemplified by Rembrandt's Night Watch.

The next article covers Rococo/Neo-Classical Portraiture.

• For info about portrait art in Ireland, see: Irish Portrait Artists.
• For more about the different types of painting (portraits, landscapes, still-lifes etc) see: Painting Genres.
• For details of landscape and portraiture in Ireland, see: Irish Art Guide

• How to Update This Mini Review of Baroque Portraits