Renaissance Portrait Art

Portrait art of the early and later Italian Renaissance period played second fiddle to history (istoria) painting during the trecento (14th century), quattrocento (15th century) and early cinquecento (16th century). The main preoccupation of Italian visual arts remained the depiction of religious, secular and mythological moments, whose messages were most suitable for public display in huge murals. In response, many Old Masters (eg. Leonardo Da Vinci, and Michelangelo) inserted portraits into their grand murals. Further North, in Flanders, Holland and Germany, the preference for oils over fresco, as well as a lesser enthusiasm for Greek art, led to more traditional easel-style portraiture. The most famous Italian Renaissance portrait is the Mona Lisa, painted by Leonardo Da Vinci when he was 50.

Ecce Homo (c.1500) by
Andrea Mantegna.

Pre-Renaissance Portraits (Trecento: 13th-14th Century)

Strongly influenced by Byzantine art from the Eastern Roman centre of Byzantium, Italian art during the Gothic period had a linear flat style featuring bold, powerful compositions, especially in the portrayal of the Passion of Christ. Then, in the very early Renaissance period, Giotto di Bondone began painting rounded, more realist faces and figures. His painting, The Lamentation of Christ (c.1305) included several portraits of Christ, the Holy Mother Mary and the Apostles, which - while still idealized in the Byzantine style - are painted more realistically, with more modern features and human feelings. While not a portraitist, as such, Giotto's faces and his more realistic style of painting led directly to the naturalism of the Early Renaissance.

Man in a Red Turban (1433) by
Jan Van Eyck, the great Dutch
Old Master and leader of the
Northern Renaissance.

Growth in Portrait Painting

The mercantile prosperity of Italian city states and certain North European ports, led directly to the artistic upsurge commonly known as the Renaissance. From this time on, in addition to Papal commissions for murals, statues and other artworks, wealthy rulers and citizens across Europe became significant patrons of the visual arts, especially portraits.

Italian Renaissance Portraits (c.1420-1520)

Its worth noting that four principles underlined the work of Italian artists and portraitists: an enormous reverence for Classical Greek Antiquity; a faith in the nobility of Man (Humanism); the mastery of linear perspective (depth in a painting); and an overriding respect for naturalistic figure drawing and figure painting of the human form, in line with the supremacy of disegno over colorito. These principles are exemplified in early Renaissance masterpieces like the dreamy, contemplative sculpture David (c.1435-53) by Donatello; The sad-faced heroine in The Birth of Venus (c.1485) by Botticelli; and the incomparable Mona Lisa (1503-6) by Leonardo Da Vinci. High Renaissance jewels include: Michelangelo's compelling faces in his religious frescoes Genesis (1508-12) and Last Judgement (1536-41) on the ceiling and wall of the Sistine Chapel in Rome - possibly the greatest series of murals in the history of art - also, his sorrowful sculpture, Pieta (1500); portraits by other famous artists include: Duke Federico da Montefeltro and His Spouse Battista Sforza (c.1466) by Piero della Francesca; St Sebastian (c.1495) by Pietro Perugino; Ecce Homo (1500) by Andrea Mantegna; and Doge Leonardo Loredan (c.1500) by Giovanni Bellini; Sistine Madonna (c.1513) and Pope Leo X (1519) by Raphael; Portrait of a Man (1512) and Venus of Urbino (1538) by Titian; Giuseppe Arcimboldo: Summer (1573).

Northern Renaissance Portraits (c.1420-1520)

The upsurge in artistic activity among Dutch and Flemish painters during the fifteenth century, commonly called the Northern Renaissance, was not influenced especially by Ancient Greek Art. Instead, it was more pragmatic, more down to earth and based on two principles. First, its discovery of oil paint, permitting endless reworking of the picture and thus tremendous clarity of detail; second, its mastery of linear perspective and other techniques like 'the convex mirror' and subtle shading. If the Italian Renaissance is characterized by an unworldly idealism, the artists of Northern Europe created clear-eyed, dispassionate paintings whose realism exceeded that of many Italian virtuosi. Masterpieces of the Dutch, Flemish and German schools include: The Arnolfini Portrait (1434) and A Man in a Red Turban (1433) by Jan van Eyck; Portrait of An Old Woman (1470) and Portrait of a Man (1480s) by Hans Memling; numerous portraits and self-portraits by Albrecht Durer (c.1500-1520); the realistic, expressionist faces in the unpainted limewood sculptures of Tilman Riemenschneider (c.1485-1525); The Nymph of the fountain (1534) by Lucas Cranach the Elder; Portrait of Georg Gisze of Danzig (1532) by Hans Holbein the Elder; Jane Seymour (1536) by Hans Holbein the Younger.

The next period in the history of portrait painting is Baroque Portraiture.

• For info about portrait-painting 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 Renaissance Portraits