Experimental Portraiture

Historical Portrait.

In earlier portraits, you would see the upper class and more often than not it is used for memorabilia for the rich, powerful and upper class. At this time they were the only ones who could afford it, and have the time to give the artist. When portraits were being made they took a while so the problem with this was the people may change in time and want to portray them selves a little different as they did few months ago. The artist would have to make these changes because they were being paid for it and the sitter was usually high up and have more authority. 

 When these portraits are being created there are different materials used and some mediums used are cameras, watercolours, oil pastels and more. Usually the sitter would choose what they wanted because they were the one giving the artist work and paying them, even though they benefit just as much form paying to have the portrait done. 

 There are different reasons people have these portraits made. Some people want family pictures so they can be remembered in time, some want to show how they change in time and how the way they look at things change, for example one image they might want something that mean a lot to them at the time but then it might not mean anything to them in the next or it might be relevant to something different. 

 The portrait I’ve chosen to analyse is Queen Elizabeth I, there is so much going on in the image but if you don’t look further into the image it wont say much but when you truly look it say a lot more than you could think a picture could say. The material in her clothing is very patterned and it looks rich, this shows she has money to spare on clothes and good materials for hand made outfits. The more material someone has on their clothes, it shoes they can afford more, which is very different from nowadays. Today little clothing is very popular. Elizabeth has so much that she has a collar just to show extra material. Also in this image she has her hand resting on the globe as if it’s hers but with no effort at all (her hand on the globe, symbolic of her desire of an empire), and its lower than her in the image so she’s higher than everything. 

The Winter Garden

When Roland Barthes was writing about the photograph of his mother, he is very passionate and to him it’s such a magnificent image. He’s trying to portray the feelings the image has on him and how an image can affect a person but by what is in the image and if you know the person and have connection with them, this is the reason the image hasn’t been published. The effect this writing has on us compared to if the image was published is so much more powerful because we don’t know the sitter, “(I can not reproduce the Winter Garden photograph. It exists only for me. For you, it would be nothing but an indifferent picture, one of the thousand manifestations of the “ordinary”; it cannot in any way constitute the visible object of science; it cannot establish an objectivity, in the positive sense of the term; at most it would interest your stadium: period, clothes, photogeny; but in it, for you, no wound)” (page 73, Camera Lucida Roland Barthes.) 

 When using paint as your medium there are many differences to photography. In painting you can change the sitter a bit more and make them look slightly different this was better in 1580’s because only the rich upper class could afford to have paintings done of him/herself or family. The painter could make them look better because they were paying a lot of money to get it done and don’t want to be disappointed, because these upper class people were the target audience for the painters to carry on their career.  When shooting photographs in the late 19th century, there were a lot of negatives. You couldn’t take a lot of photos and choose the best one like we can now with digital photography. You had to pay for each photograph you took, and you couldn’t edit the same as you can now, with such good technology. On the other hand photography is more true because you cant change the way the sitter looks or how they come across, I think that is important how they naturally look and portray who they really are.

 The winter garden print is very subjective this is the reason he’s not publishing it because its all his opinions and feelings and its more powerful for us to try understand his feelings towards it rather than see the photograph and make our own feelings because it wouldn’t be the same or how he wants us to feel. I think the way photographs are taken does effect the way the sitter is portrayed but the sitter is more important and how relaxed or tense they are when having their photo taken and their expression. 

Alternative Portrait

 I have researched number of alternative portraiture artists but focused on one which I’ve chose marc Quinn’s blood head. This is a cast that has won Nobel Prize! Its visually of his face which is experimental and different to what others have done and to make it even more personal and individual its full of his blood. It can be melted and changed or put back in the cast to re-shape if it melts a little and isn’t exactly like his face and if it has to be moved from the gallery, it can be with ease.  I think this head so exquisite because just like us we have to eat to stay healthy and this head has to stay cold to stay the same shape. Marc Quinn has created this blood head to portray his view and represent human life in every aspect from physical and spiritual, surface and depth. This has hit all areas because he has involved science and photography and science are two something you’d automatically think goes together.

My Own Distressed Portrait 

 I have created a number of alternative portraits, this was very hard to decided which particular one to discuss. In the end I decided on my 3D one because it was most different. Alot of other people in the class created ones similar to few of my others. I chose a self portrait because I could put more view into it, if it was myself and it’s a close up because I took it myself and couldn’t get much further away with it still being in focus and cropped in the right areas and getting all my features in. To make it 3D I have printed nine images of the same photo, and cut and cropped each one more each time in different places. 

 I like this because the areas that are more stereotypically more attractive in portraits are closer to the viewer and stand out more. If I could this again I would use a sharper knife but I did my best with the tools provided. When planning to do this I didn’t plan exact lines on each images where to cut for each layer, I just cut where looked best at the time. I prefer this because its more ‘in the moment’ which I like and it creates a more truthful image of ‘me’. This way I think is more experimental because there isn’t anything wrong if something doesn’t go to plan its just ‘different’, which can sometimes be better than if you’d planned more.