portraits — Daily Art Fixx - Art Blog: Modern Art, Art History, Painting, Illustration, Photography, Sculpture

Happy Mother’s Day all you moms out there! In honour of this special day, DAF presents a selection of well known portraits of artist’s mothers. Throughout history, many artists have painted their mothers for a variety reasons; “as a loving tribute, to capture a memorable face, to work through conflicting emotions, as a family legacy, or the simple availability of a model.”

The development of photography in the 19th century however, had a significant impact on portrait painting. Many turned to photography studios to have their portraits made as a cheaper alternative. Some artists found photography to be a useful aid to composition and from the Impressionists onward , artists have found numerous ways to expand their techniques and reinterpret the portrait to compete effectively with photography:

“Henri Matisse produced powerful portraits using non-naturalistic, even garish, colors for skin tones. Cézanne relied on highly simplified forms in his portraits, avoiding detail while emphasizing color juxtapositions. Gustav Klimt’s unique style applied Byzantine motifs and gold paint to his memorable portraits. Picasso painted many portraits, including several cubist renderings of his mistresses, in which the likeness of the subject is grossly distorted to achieve an emotional statement well beyond the bounds of normal caricature.”

As a result of an increased interest in abstract and non-figurative art, portrait painting in Europe and the Americas declined in the 1940s and 50s. In the 1960s an 70s, however, a revival of portraiture began. Artists such as Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, and other contemporary artists have made the human face a focal point of their work. As well, photographic portraiture has become fully accepted in the art world and photo portraits are exhibited alongside painters in galleries and museum.

Whether a portrait of one’s mother or family member, friend or a stranger on the street; in our era of mass-media and the web, where images can be exchanged seconds, our desire to create and commission unique images of ourselves lives on.

Sources: Wikipedia, National Portrait Gallery

More blasts of colour by French painter Françoise Nielly. “Nielly grew up in the South of France where she lived between Cannes and Saint-Tropez – never far from the light, the color sense and the atmosphere that permeates the South of France. This is coupled with her studies with her studies at the Beaux arts and Decorative Arts, and her sense of humor and of celebration.

Nielly’s painting is expressive, exhibiting a brute force, a fascinating vital energy. Oil and knife combine to sculpt her images from a material that is , at the same time, biting and incisive, and sensual. Whether she paints the human body or portraits, the artist takes a risk : her painting is sexual, her colors free, exuberant, surprising, even explosive, the cut of her knife incisive, her color pallet dazzling.” (from artist’s website)

Nielly currently lives and paints in Paris near Montmartre. She shows and sells her work in Europe, in Canada and in the United States.

To see more of Nielly’s work, visit Francoise-Nielly.com.