Portrait Painter Research Articles

Dumitru Peicev. The tribute to art

Dumitru Peicev (19.05.1943–18.12.2023), a renowned figure in the field of fine art in the Republic of Moldova, professionally evolved during the 1960s, inspired by the traditions of the French and Romanian schools of painting from the late 19th to early 20th centuries. A significant influence on his artistic conceptions and aesthetic visions was played by master Mihail Grecu, one of the founders of the national school of painting, with whom Dumitru Peicev had a warm and fruitful collaboration. Throughout his artistic career, he manifested himself as a talented painter of thematic compositions, genre scenes, landscapes, still life, and portraits. Dumitru Peicev’s paintings are housed in the collections of the National Art Museum of Moldova, the Museum of Fine Arts in Razgrad, Bulgaria, the Art Museum in Ţelingrad, Kazakhstan, and in numerous private collections. A significant number of his works have been donated to the „Dumitru Peicev” Art Gallery in the city of Taraclia. Through his original creations, Dumitru Peicev contributed to the enrichment of the national cultural heritage, shaping a new chapter in the history of contemporary fine arts.

Materials analysis in three paintings of Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) by portable X-ray fluorescence

Three paintings of Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788), one of the most influential English portrait painters of the late 18th century, from the collection of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) - “Francis Rawdon” (1783–1784), “Portrait of Mrs. John Bolton” (1770), and “Drinkstone Park” (1747) - were investigated using portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF), employing a W tube anode and an XR-100CR detector. These artworks represent the only paintings by Thomas Gainsborough located in the southern hemisphere. Through an analysis of the behavior of X-ray line net areas for all identified elements in various regions of the oil paintings, it was observed that XRF accurately identified the original materials: Lead White, Calcium Carbonate, Calcium Sulfate, Bone Black, Ivory Black, Yellow Iron Oxide, Prussian Blue, Vermillion, Red Iron Oxide, Umber, and Sienna Earth. Additionally, certain regions exhibited the presence of 19th century pigments: Zinc White, Cobalt Blue, and Chrome Yellow, indicating areas that had undergone restoration. The findings presented in this study align closely with results obtained from other investigations into paintings by Thomas Gainsborough.

The Technical Examination of Nineteenth-Century Artists' Pigments from John Opie’s Paintbox

ABSTRACT St Agnes Museum, Cornwall, currently holds in its collections a paint box with a metal plaque reading ‘John Opie 1806’, containing pigments and other artists’ materials. John Opie produced hundreds of oil paintings until his untimely death in 1807 and was a well-known and successful painter of portraits and historical scenes. However, his work has been little studied, in comparison to his contemporaries such as Joshua Reynolds. This paper discusses the identification of the pigments in the paint box using infrared spectroscopy (FTIR-ATR), optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDX), Raman spectroscopy (SERS) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF). Seven pigments have been identified as ultramarine, lead white, fustic and carmine lakes, carbon black (likely ivory), hematite, and burnt sienna, consistent with the bottle labels where present. The identification has been further confirmed using historical literature, which has shown that the pigments are likely to be contemporary with the stated date of 1806. This information adds to the body of knowledge about the artist specifically, and the artists pigments generally available at the time.

The Awakening of Feminist Artistic Expression: A Comparative Study of the Self-Portrait of Frida Kahlo and the Self-Portrait of Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

The topic of feminism was not discussed by scholars until the 20th century, but it has become a highly debated issue in today's society. Female portrait artists have been historically marginalized due to the origins of portraiture being intended to please male viewers. In the past, women were predominantly viewed as mothers and housewives within the social context. However, the research has revealed that numerous female artists defied the societal norms of the time and made unique efforts to achieve independence as professional women. In the long history of painting, there have been many female painters who have expressed feminist ideas through their art. This article compares the self-portraits of two portrait painters, Frida Kahlo and Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, in terms of painting themes, methods, and the representation of women. This study explores how female artists' paintings were influenced by the rise of female consciousness in different periods. The final result concludes that feminist awakening is depicted in female-themed paintings across different social periods by female artists.

Metamorphosis. A Portrait of a man holding gloves by the Master of the 1540s

This Portrait of a man by the Master of the 1540s has known a remarkable history, both in terms of ownership and especially in its change of outlook, hence the title Metamorphosis. Since 1907 it has been part of a stylistically coherent group of portraits, given by Max J. Friedländer to the so-called Master of the 1540s in 1936. In this article I have tried to give a full account of the picture’s provenance history, the various restorations it underwent and the changes in its outlook which were the result of these restorations, making use of historical photographs as well as modern methods of examination, including infrared reflectography (IRR), X-radiography and Macro X-ray Fluorescence (MA-XRF). In addition the portrait is used as a tool to understand more of the artist’s working methods, including the possible use of detailed portrait drawings, a tool that must have been used by most active portrait painters at the time, although only drawings (and connected portrait paintings) by Hans Holbein the Younger and Jean Clouet have survived in such numbers that something useful can be said on the functions of both drawing and underdrawing. Finally, I have proposed an identification of the artist in question as Cornelis van Cleve, who was born in 1520 as the only son of Joos van Cleve. Together with Willem Key, Cornelis was probably trained in his father’s studio as a portrait painter. After his father passed away in 1540-41, the young Cornelis took over his father’s thriving studio.

Sociability and portraiture from William Hogarth to Thomas Lawrence

The period between 1730-1830 saw the rise of an English school of art, much later than the other schools on the European continent. English portrait painters played a crucial part in this evolution by deploying the art of portraiture in infinite variations, in search of a veracity and an intimacy whose contours and peculiarities they tirelessly strove to capture and render. Indeed, they radically transformed their chosen pictorial genre by transcribing onto canvas the new conceptions and perceptions of the individual which had emerged in the Age of Enlightenment. Sensitive to the new universalist values associated with the notions of identity, individuality and sociability, the British portraitists set out to represent the variety and diversity of human beings, moving away from ancient types and models to focus on the particular, singular, circumstantial personalities of the models. In this essay I try to present the narrative of this remarkable blossoming, focussing on the works of a series of exceptional artists—William Hogarth, Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, Thomas Lawrence—whose works provide us with a remarkable visual chronicle of the evolutions of men, women and children in this rich moment in European history.

ХУДОЖНИК И ПЕДАГОГ А.Г. ПЕСИГИН: СТРАНИЦЫ ЖИЗНИ И ТВОРЧЕСТВА

The article is devoted to the life and work of the outstanding artist, writer and teacher Anatoly Georgievich Pesigin, who made a great contribution to the development of Russian art in the second half of the 20th century. During this rather difficult historical period for our country, culture faced an important task, which was to continue the formation and dissemination of new values of the Soviet state. In many ways, the solution of this issue was facilitated, among other things, by the creative activity of the portrait painter A.G. Pesigin. The creative path and stages of development of creative ideas, means of expression and themes of works in the process of searching for an individual language are consid ered. An example and characteristics of works from the initial period of creativity, brought up by the traditions of the academic school of the Penza Art School, are given. As well as the turning point and transformation of the creative method during the “thaw” period. The period of creation of graphic works in a characteristic linear manner in the process of illustrating books of Samara poets and writers is studied separately. In addition, the special pedagogical activity of Anatoly Georgievich was noted in educating young artists, effective forms and methods of working with students aimed at developing their creative abilities and desire to understand the world.

Teaching Portraits with Method – the Technology of Grids, Compasses and Proportions in British Drawing Manuals

Manuals teaching how to draw a face and figure were translated into English from their original Dutch, Italian and French, and altered to focus especially on the skills of transferability, and the use of measurements in the practice of picture copying. The texts on proportions and ideal ratio were often misinterpreted while the accompanying plates were often mistaken for ready reckoning tables or copy plates. The resulting unworkability of some of these lessons did not however greatly impact the popularity of these manuals. Gridded illustrations and plates laden with measurements became regular fixtures, luring the amateur-customer with the promise of easily reproducible designs for accomplished results. The geometricized drawing of the face made reproducible projections the basic toolbox of the portrait painter and artisan, ruler and compass in hand.

The Prince, the Noblemen and the Painter: Collectionso Works of Art in Copenhagen Between 1800 and 1848

The history of collecting in Denmark and Norway in the 19th century is intimately connected with the history of the painters and sculptors active during that period. Only in Copenhagen were the Royal and private collections accessible to the artists, for whom copying paintings by Old Masters formed an important part of their curriculum. Major collectors of the Age were Prince Christian Frederik (later King Christian VIII of Denmark), who mainly acquired paintings and sculptures by contemporary artists, and the portrait painter Christian Albrecht Jensen, whose preference was to buy and sell the works of Old Masters. In Copenhagen, the collections of the Counts Moltke, which mainly consisted of works by Dutch painters, was open to the public, while the Royal Collection (today a part of Statens Museum for Kunst) could only be visited from 1827 onwards. None of the three collections dealt with in the present article have survived until today, while the works of art and the antiques belonging to the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen are at present housed in the museum bearing his name.

Art therapy postcards:

This research article draws on a master’s thesis. Inherited perpetrator trauma may result from a family legacy of past familial collaboration with the South African apartheid regime. This historical narrative emerges from a familial relationship with the artist Irmin Henkel, the author’s step-grandfather. Henkel was known as the official portrait painter of the 1960s apartheid regime Cabinet. A heuristic self-study and arts-based approach were used to create a five-step protocol that art therapists can use to treat inherited perpetrator trauma. The approach used postcards as an art therapy tool. I repurposed family photographs into postcards to engage with the past. I also wrote reflective narratives. Inherited perpetrator trauma theories were used. A dialectical thinking approach was used that considers more than one perspective. Three main themes emerged: guilt, denial, and toxic shame. The creation of postcards from historical family narratives successfully uncovered the themes. The protocol has not been tested beyond the self-study. However, the use of museum spaces and the theory of object relations is considered in this article. Making toxic shame conscious and confronting and transforming this trauma can prevent a repeat of past historical transgressions and encourage healthier relationships to self, family, community and a broader South African society.

A Conversation With … Adrian Fisher, the World's Leading Designer of Landscape Mazes.

A Conversation With … Adrian Fisher, the World's Leading Designer of Landscape Mazes.

A Case of Multiple Identities: Uncanny Histories of the Arabic Typewriter

AbstractLittle is known today about the Arabic typewriter. American typewriters revolutionized clerical labor and became literary icons, but the Arabic typewriter is largely absent from scholarship and popular culture. Only one story about it recurs, namely that of its origins. It was reportedly invented multiple times: in 1890s Beirut by, among others, a portrait painter named Salim Haddad; in 1900s Vienna by Theodor Herzl, founding father of political Zionism; and in 1940s Cairo by Wadie Said, father of the pioneering postcolonial theorist Edward Said. Bringing three competing accounts of the machine's invention together, I find that in each the Arabic typewriter was turned to very different purposes. Consistently, however, it was co-opted into intensifying struggles over territory and language. Repeatedly, it exceeded its representations, unsettling the narratives into which it was written and provoking a sense of strangeness, even unease. And across the accounts, diverse names and places reappear: New York, Palestine, Sherlock Holmes. Taking seriously the doublings and coincidences that connect the typewriter's origin-stories, I ask finally whether they might alert us to the possibility of another mode of cultural history—one that is itself uncanny and estranged.

The Dornava portrait gallery of the Attems family and other portraits by Joseph Digl: a contribution to the oeuvre and biography of the baroque painter

The contribution brings forth new findings about the Baroque painter Joseph Digl († 1765) and his portraits. The painter’s opus, which has so far comprised seven portraits of the Counts of Attems and four altar paintings, has now been expanded by another six portraits revealing that his clientele also included the Counts of Szapáry. Based on the analysis of his links to his patrons and the newly discovered archival sources, it is possible to more precisely follow the life path of Joseph Digl and to confirm his presence in Ljutomer and Bad Radkersburg. Moreover, his comprehensive opus and the splendid ties that he maintained with his clientele rank him among important Baroque portrait painters in Slovenia.

The Influence of William Hogarth on Later Generations

The Influence of William Hogarth on Later Generations

Jozef Oleszkiewicz as a Participant of an Academic Exhibition in 1814

Jozef Oleszkiewicz, a native of the Polish-Lithuanian lands, was a talented portrait painter who settled on the banks of the Neva at the beginning of the 19th century and was elected academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts. Oleszkiewicz was known to the Polish community of St. Petersburg not only as an artist who had his own unique painting style and gained popularity among the fair sex for his ability to create inspired portraits of women, but also as a mystic, philosopher, and inspired poet. Now Oleszkiewicz is known primarily as the hero of Adam Mickiewicz’s poem “Dziady”. Part III of the poem, completed in 1832, contains the “Oleszkiewicz” section. On the eve of the famous St. Petersburg flood of 1824, the artist uttered a prophecy that correlated with the biblical plot and marked the beginning of the formation of an apocalyptic myth about the death of the city from the Neva waters. Despite the major historical and cultural significance of Oleszkiewicz’s personality and work for Polish culture in the first quarter of the 19th century, the artist’s biography needs additional study, and there are no special research works devoted to his artistic career. The personality of the artist received a mythological interpretation in historiography; the real person disappeared into the artistic image created by Mickiewicz. It seems necessary to fill the gaps that exist in our knowledge about the life and work of this Polish-Lithuanian artist, to con-duct additional archival research, which will help not only to clarify some details of his biography, but also in the future to find and attribute his paintings. The article is devoted to Oleszkiewicz’s participation in the academic exhibition of 1814 and to establishing the names of the paintings that were exhibited by Oleszkiewicz in that year. The study was conducted on archival materials (Russian State Historical Archive).

THE THEME OF “GOLDEN CHILDHOOD” IN THE CONCEPTUAL FIELD OF RUSSIAN CHILDREN'S PICTORIAL PORTRAIT OF THE XIX - EARLY XX CENTURY

“Golden Childhood” is considered as a theme that had a significant impact during the 19th - early 20th century on the depiction of a child in Russian pictorial portraiture. The work studies the era of romanticism, when there was an increase in attention to the personality of a child, there was a desire for his idealization, the work of Wanderers and salon portrait painters. The analysis ends with the period of the Silver Age in Russian culture, when the culmination of the development of this concept took place. It is shown how the authors' desire to depict boys and girls as angels or inhabitants of the “golden age” was reflected in the picturesque portraits, then to point out their well-being in the family, and then childishness in behavior and individual traits as manifestations of a developing personality. By the beginning of the 20th century, the theme of “golden childhood” had allowed artists to make a portrait of a child in a special space of creative research and experimentation.

Havas Béla Antal, un mare anonim al Clujului, „cel mai bun portretist al Transilvaniei”

When we are talking about an icon, especially when it is already a legend like the miracle‑worker of Nicula, researching some accounting records does not seem to promise anything spectacular, especially when you do not expect them to tell an unknown part of its history. However, such an untimely and unprecedented discovery can turn them into important and decisive sources for confirming working hypotheses. The discovery we are talking about is an irrevocable confirmation of the last pictorial intervention on this Holy Icon, before the famous „restoration” of the 90s, which brought great doubt about its authenticity and caused tons of ink to flow, heating up the spirits. What’s more, the discovery also bears the name of the person who made it: Havas Béla Antal. A painter, of whom almost all art history specialists have heard, but about whom many can say... nothing, and who as „the best portrait painter of Transylvania” is not mentioned in any lexicon or art album, perhaps because the peculiarity of his work is... perfect anonymity!

The opus of Ljutomer’s native painter Roman Fekonja (1868–1910) in the light of newspaper articles and other sources

As a student of Heinrich Schwach (1829–1902), Ljutomer’s native painter Roman Fekonja (1868–1910) was a representative of Realism, the most prolific as a portrait painter. He belongs to the group of forgotten Styrian visual artists. After completing his education at the Provincial Academy of Drawing in Graz, he set out for the United States of America in 1892 but returned to his native town of Ljutomer in 1896. Later (1901), he travelled to New York again and married Josipina Kleinlercher from Domžale. In 1909, the couple visited their former homeland, after which Josipina refused to go back to New York with him. Consumed by loneliness, Fekonja took his own life in 1910.

The opus of Ljutomer’s native painter Roman Fekonja (1868–1910) in the light of newspaper articles and other sources

As a student of Heinrich Schwach (1829–1902), Ljutomer’s native painter Roman Fekonja (1868–1910) was a representative of Realism, the most prolific as a portrait painter. He belongs to the group of forgotten Styrian visual artists. After completing his education at the Provincial Academy of Drawing in Graz, he set out for the United States of America in 1892 but returned to his native town of Ljutomer in 1896. Later (1901), he travelled to New York again and married Josipina Kleinlercher from Domžale. In 1909, the couple visited their former homeland, after which Josipina refused to go back to New York with him. Consumed by loneliness, Fekonja took his own life in 1910.

The opus of Ljutomer’s native painter Roman Fekonja (1868–1910) in the light of newspaper articles and other sources

As a student of Heinrich Schwach (1829–1902), Ljutomer’s native painter Roman Fekonja (1868–1910) was a representative of Realism, the most prolific as a portrait painter. He belongs to the group of forgotten Styrian visual artists. After completing his education at the Provincial Academy of Drawing in Graz, he set out for the United States of America in 1892 but returned to his native town of Ljutomer in 1896. Later (1901), he travelled to New York again and married Josipina Kleinlercher from Domžale. In 1909, the couple visited their former homeland, after which Josipina refused to go back to New York with him. Consumed by loneliness, Fekonja took his own life in 1910.