The photograph records the sitters face exactly as it was at that precise moment in time, however the painting can often miss tiny details of the face which reveal its age and disposition. West defines: 'A portrait serves magically to freeze time and to extend artificially the life of the represented individual.'7 With this comment brought to attention it appears that photographic portraits are the most technically accurate. read more.ĭue to lack of any conclusive findings in the above paragraphs, the question of what function a portrait must fulfil becomes apparent. Artists regarded photographs as mere regurgitations and made clear that '.imagination, rather than imitation is required of art.'1 On the contrary it has been said that photography was a new means of pursuing the ends of painting.2 This is the view that photography was.
However, it was not long before photography was slated badly by many. Many people at the time thought nothing could exceed these imitations as portrayals of people. When first discovered, photography threw painted portraits to the sidelines of the art scene because of its obvious technological and economical advantages. I must also draw attention to the fact that photography has been caught up in an everlasting struggle to be recognised as a fine art in its own right. This distinction makes it a challenging task to compare photographic and painterly ideas of what a portrait consists of. For some, a portrait may simply be a study of physical likeness whereas for others it may be a study of the sitter's character, their inner personality. When addressing this subject, I feel it is very important to recognise that artists have very different objectives when creating a portrait.
However, this is a very wide question and though it has great scope for deeper analysis, lack of words and space has prevented me from exploring each point in more detail here. I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each as vehicles of portraiture. Are there any fundamental differences between photographic and painted portraiture? In this essay I hope to define some of the fundamental differences between the above two methods.
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