Portrait Art: Nineteenth Century
Romantic, Realist, Plein Air Portraiture, Theodore Gericault, Goya, Delacroix, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Manet, William Orpen, John Singer Sargent.
Timeline For History of Western Art: Movements, Styles

19th Century Portraits

Portrait art in the nineteenth century encompassed several different styles, each reflecting part of the political jigsaw of the period.

The style of Romanticism attracted artists who wanted to liberate art from old fashioned values; the Academic style was embraced by those who favoured the cultural status quo, while Realism reflected the new industrialization and its effects on rural communities. Plein air painting was influenced by the Romantics and paved the way for Impressionism.

Romantic Portraits

Romantic artists pursued self-expression, favouring a dramatic, emotional and heroic style. Evocative treatment of light, vigorous brush strokes and inspirational content were other hallmarks of Romantic portraiture. The Spanish artist Francisco de Goya began as a Neo-Classicist but turned towards Romanticism in portraits such as: The Nude Maja (La maja desnuda) (1800), and the extraordinary Saturn Devouring His Son (1821). Theodore Gericault was noted for his images of mental patients, such as: Portrait of a Kleptomaniac (1819) and Portrait of a Woman Addicted to Gambling (1822); Eugene Delacroix, the leader of French Romanticism, used bold colours as well as a dashing style which echoed the Old Masters like the Venetian colourist Titian and the great Baroque portraitist Rubens. Romanticism spawned the Pre-Raphaelite style of art, exemplified by the allegorical portraits by Dante Gabriel Rossetti like Lady Lillith (1868) and Proserpine (1882).

Realist-Style Portraiture

Realist portrait painters depicted a wide variety of ordinary people in undramatic settings, often using a restricted subtle palette of subdued colours. James McNeill Whistler painted numerous such works, including: Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter's Mother (1871). The farmer's son Jean-Francois Millet focused on rural life in his series of genre-portraits, such as: The Sower (1850) and The Angelus (1857). The leader of the French Realism school was Gustave Courbet, one of the first artists to build up a thick impasto of pigment with a palette knife. His genre-portraits included: The Painter's Studio: A Real Allegory (1855). Honore Daumier, dubbed 'the greatest nineteenth century caricaturist' created numerous portraits (in the form of drawing, watercolours and prints) of French men and women living under a corrupt regime. His supreme figure drawing and figure painting demonstrates a mastery of facial expressions.

Academic Portraiture

Harking back to Neo-Classicism and the Renaissance, Academic painting declined throughout the nineteenth century. Two of its finest exponents were John Singer Sargent, whose masterpieces included The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (1882) and Madame X (1884), and Sir William Orpen. The pre-Impressionist Edouard Manet, an important influence in late nineteenth century Paris, leaned towards Classicism in his famous picture Olympia (1863).

Plein Air

Barbizon plein-airism, the outdoor style of painting which inspired famous artists like Claude Monet, is exemplified by Jean Baptiste Camille Corot. Predominantly a landscape artist, his portrait work included the masterpiece: Woman With a Pearl (1869), whose composition is based on Leonardo Da Vinci's masterpiece, The Mona Lisa (1503).

The next article covers Impressionist Portraiture.

• For info about portraiture 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 Portrait Art From the Nineteenth Century

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