Donor portraits, incorporated into religious scenes, were common in Italy for another 150 years, a period in which portraiture for its own sake developed in the North. The first great northern Renaissance portraitist was the Flemish painter Jan van Eyck, who endowed his subjects with life and personality and introduced the portrait as a secular art form to Europe. In the 15th century, Italian portraiture was influenced by this Flemish approach, which confirmed the realist tradition based on ancient sculpture, as in Peiro Della Francesca's portraits of Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza (1465; Uffizi Gallery, Florence). The conflict between idealism and realism was characteristic of High Renaissance portraiture. Many of the great 16th-century masters treated portraiture as a sideline (Raphael), submerged individuality in atmospheric effects (Da Vinci), or ignored likeness altogether (Michelangelo).

An alternate approach was practiced by the Venetian painters led by Titian. Using a suggestive rather than a detailed technique, they achieved a dramatic portrait style that became popular throughout Europe and influenced generations of artists. In the hands of Peter Paul Rubens, the heroic-ruler imagery of baroque Europe was continued; Sir Anthony Van Dyck introduced the style to England. More sharply focused realism evolved from the Venetian tradition in other countries; Diego Velazquez created powerful portraits at the Spanish court. Outside court circles, this realistic style was popularized in France by the Le Nain Brothers and affected the penetrating portraits of the Dutch artists Frans Hals and Rembrandt.

Portraiture was the most popular art form in England at the time of Sir Joshua Reynolds. It was virtually the only one in the American colonies until after the Revolution, and was practiced by the early Limners. Even after the Revolution, American artists, including the Peale family and Gilbert Stuart, were rarely able to support themselves except by portraiture. The coming of popular revolution to Europe coincided with a trend toward simplicity and realism in portraiture that owed much to the discovery (1748) of Pompeii. Jacques Louis David introduced themes dealing with classical democracy to Paris, and in England the same role was played by the Americans Benjamin West and John Singleton Copley.The neoclassical movement produced a generation of brilliant portraitists led by J. A. D. Ingres, while at the same time the romantic painter Eugene Delacroix used a purely atmospheric approach.

A 19th-century search for fidelity to nature impelled Louis Daguerre to invent a mechanical means of capturing light on a flat surface. The photograph rapidly supplanted the paintbrush in satisfying mass demand for commemorative portraiture. Only at the level of high society was portraiture still important, as in the work of John Singer Sargent, who blended impressionism with the British tradition of Gainsborough and Sir Thomas Lawrence. The American painter Thomas Eakins specialized in portraits of his family and friends. Among the founders of modern art, portrait subjects were likely to be treated freely, usually in an expressionist manner, as in Vincent Van Gogh's vivid likenesses of his friends. An alternative might be found in the "impressionist" sculpture of Auguste Rodin. In the 20th century serious portraiture has been of interest primarily to expressionists concerned with psychological insights, such as Oskar Kokoschaka and Chaim Soutine and, more recently, Francis Bacon.

Portraiture Part 1