PORTRAITURE. In the fine arts the repre sentation, by means of painting, sculpture, or en graving, of the appearance of an individual or a group of persons. As regards size portraits may be busts, half figure, three-quarter or full length; as regards the position of the countenance, they are full face, half profile, profile or profil perdu, if the face is further reversed. Portraiture is of very ancient origin. Sepulchral statues of the earliest Egyptian empire show that the art was even then highly developed. During the best period of Greek art, ideal portraits of individuals, of a certain likeness, but rather intended to rep resent character types, were frequently executed, both in statues and in busts, as may be seen from the most celebrated surviving examples, the Lateran and the bust of Pericles in the British .Aluseum. Realism does not enter portraiture till the age of Lysippus, who was es pecially celebrated for his portraits of Alexander the Great, copies of which survive in the well known busts in the principal European museums. At the same time portraiture was first practiced in painting by Apelles, also celebrated for his likenesses of Alexander. The only surviving por trait paintings of Greek art are those recently discovered in the of Gneco-Egyptian workmanship, and dating from the second cen tury A.u.
The realistic tendencies of the Etrusean Art were favorable to portraiture, especially in bronze. the material in which the Etruscans excelled: a good example is the bust of Brutus in the Capito line Itiseuin at Rome. Their art had a strong influence upon the Roman, which was, however, even more influenced by Greece in the develop ment of portraiture, which became the most char acteristic form of Roman sculpture. As with the Greeks. the body was portrayed as a type. in the ideal fashion, the resemblance to the individual being confined to the face. Costumes and insignia were portrayed in the most elaborate fashion. Busts were especially popular, and it became quite the fashion to collect them. (See BUSTS.) Beginning with the empire portraiture flourished at Rome until about the beginning of the third century, and about the time of Justinian, in the sixth century, it sank into disuse. A very com mon form of portraiture under the empire was upon ivory diptychs, which Roman, civil, and ec clesiastical officials distributed among their friends. This practice was continued by the By zantines, who also used mosaics for portraiture, as may be seen in the celebrated examples of Jus tinian and Theodora in San Vitale, Ravenna.
The chief use of portraiture during the middle age was for sepulchral figures, which were por trayed recumbent, seated, or kneeling. Attempts at portraiture are often apparent in the faces of the statues of the Gothic cathedrals in France. and in the thirteenth century it attained a splen did development in the statues of donors, erected in German cathedrals of the transitional period, as at Naumhurg and Bamberg. These likenesses were of an ideal character. but a more realistic portraiture was practiced in the latter four teenth century. especially by the Netherlandish school, with centre at Dijon. The chief master was Claim Sinter, and the statues produced were the most realistic portraits imaginable. This sculpture had, in turn, a marked influence upon contemporary painting in the Netherlands. The work of Jan van Eyck and his school, of the four teenth century was highly characteristic and nat uralistic, and most detailed in finisb.
In so naturalistic an age as the early Renais sance, portraiture flourished to a high degree. It was first practiced at Florence by the sculptors, Donatello having revived the art in the form in his busts, which unite excellent characterization with an admirable naturalism. tempered by the antique. The art was continued by Desiderio da Settignano and .Nino da Fiesole,andwith high suc cess in bronzes by NerroceLio. It was not practiced the first half of the fifteenth century by the paint ers of Florence. but during the latter half Botti Ghirlandajo, and others attained high success. It was, however, reserved for the fifteenth century to unite with realism and sub jective conception an ideal rendering of the sub ject. which made the portrait typical in the highest sense. This SUM'S,: was attained by most of the chief masters of the P•ennissance, such as Leonardo, Andrea del Sarto, Raphael, and Lo renzo Lotto; among the Venetians by Giorgione, Palma Vecchio, Titian, Tintoretto, and by Alorone of Brescia. During the same period the Germans practiced portraiture of quite a different type, less refined in form and more careful in detail, but with strong characterization in the work of men like Darer, and with a perfect, objective real ism in that of Holbein, who was chiefly active as a portrait painter in England.