Portraits through the ages

As long as people have been doing art there has been portraits whether it has been drawn, sculpted or painted they have existed, and through the years portraits have changed as the styles changed, techniques were invented and the materials used have changed and more types of materials have been invented.


Before the Renaissance


Portraits before the Renaissance were oddly shapes and flat with no perspective or texture and looked almost in-human. The paintings and portraits done were stuck on the page but as the artists knowledge progressed the drawings got better and began to look 3D and jump off the page.

Renaissance art

As they entered into the early Renaissance more portraits and drawings were being sketched out and the shape of the whole structure was becoming inevitable and could give the viewer a better understanding of what the person looked like. 

The most famous painters of the Renaissance really impacted our art history by showing us different ways to look at the world around us and how to put it onto a page and gave us and invented new techniques that we still use today.

Some of the most famous Renaissance artists are Leonardo da Vinci, Donatello and Michaelangelo.

After the Renaissance 

Most of the main techniques of drawing were introduced during the Renaissance so not a lot after happened but change still happens every day as people invent new techniques and new ways to look at different objects even in the tiniest of ways.

One of the best examples of modern portraits is a tv show called Portrait Artist if they year, each year hundreds of talented artists submit a self portrait to the competition to qualify for the 9 spots open for each round with one person from each round being chosen by the judges to go to the semi finale. I’m the tv show it shows all the different talented artists and how everyone has their own way of looking at life and how diverse all the different styles of drawing are to each other.