Customer Reviews

Portraiture (Oxford History of Art)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you are an art lover, connoisseur, art history student, fashion designer, or someone who wants to explore the mysterious world of portraiture this book is an excellent choice. The author assumed the difficult task of providing a clear, comprehensive overview of the history of portraits and portraiture from the ancient world, through the Renaissance to modern art.

I would give this book the best rating possible. You ask why? The answer is simple. As an art lover, I am particularly interested in the evolution of portraits and portraiture of the Renaissance and Baroque and this book covers the whole range of my interest and beyond. In this lavishly illustrated book the author, Shearer West, explains why the portrait as a work of art occupies the central position in art history, gives easy to remember definitions of portraits and portraiture, and studies the diversity of portrait forms and functions. She discusses in-depth how portraiture changed and developed over the centuries and paints a unique, intriguing relationship of artist, sitters, patron/s and viewer. She also reveals who and why commissioned the portraits and how a portrait can reflect and represent the social status of the sitter (rich or poor, powerful or subjugated, professional or servant) in different historical periods. The history of portraiture could not be completed without a broad-range of methods and tricks, sometimes very funny, used by artists to present themselves to the publicity. Her investigation of the complexities of contemporary ortraiture, of the 1950's onwards, is clear and convincing. This fascinating book is enriched with 146 high quality illustrations with well written, highly informative commentary to each painting.

This is an excellent survey of portrait art from ancient to modern times with a great bibliography, lots of references, and good illustrations. I appreciated the historic timeline and a list of websites for further research.
I'd recommend this book for anyone interested in portraiture. As a portrait artist I thoroughly enjoyed it. For some reason, art historians have largely ignored portraiture as a field of research.
My only criticism is that I found the book a bit dry, lacking creative insight and humor. The emphasis on painting, at the expense of drawing and sculpture is also a notable shortcoming.

The next time that I teach portrait painting, I will require that students purchase this book. It is a good overview, providing general themes as well as specific examples. An early chapter on the functions of portraiture, for instance, covers the full breadth of what a portrait can be or mean, and underscores that a portrait is much more than a likeness.

For someone interested in this aspect of art history, it provides an excellent overview with examples from the sweep of history and insightful, trenchant study. Not only useful for students of the subject but gives good background for museum docents. It's also enjoyable reading--even @ bedtime.

This is an interesting review of the complexitie of portraiture. The book is well-structured and researched, with very good illustrations. It is irritating that the captions repeat much of what is already in the text, but omit to mention where the paintings are held. However, my biggest reservation about the book is the almost total absence of fresh insights or interesting perspectives. The author seems more concerned with mentioning all the various academic points of view than providing her own thoughts. Pity.

I tried to make sense out of this book. And I couldn't. It's just an unstructured show of "look how much I can refference in a few pages". And the praised illustrations follow the same rule of being linked to nothing, they just fill in. Quite unhelpful as a book. Now, if you want to impress with your trivia knowledge, the purpose of the author, than this is the book for you to learn. Othewise avoid it and use that time on something else.