{"id":220775,"date":"2025-06-28T07:44:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-28T07:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/220775\/"},"modified":"2025-06-28T07:44:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-28T07:44:10","slug":"its-not-just-a-big-selfie-inside-the-unexpected-revival-of-old-school-painted-portraits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/220775\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It’s not just a big selfie’: Inside the unexpected revival of old-school painted portraits"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was, concedes Claudia Fisher, a lot of money to spend. \u201cI\u2019d never spent that kind of money on something before,\u201d says the American creative director of women\u2019s tailoring brand Belle Brummell. \u201cBut I have something unique that gives me a lot of joy, and I have supported the art form<\/a> and that\u2019s important.\u201d <\/p>\n

Indeed, Fisher\u2019s Dh98,000 ($26,700) outlay went to having her portrait painted by celebrated portraitist Paul Brason, who counts leading industrialists, academics and the British royal family\u2019s late Prince Philip<\/a> among his subjects. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just loved the way he could render fabric so exquisitely, giving his paintings an old master quality, even if the painting now just hangs in my house,\u201d says Fisher. \u201cIt\u2019s fun to say \u2018hi\u2019 to it once in a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fisher is not alone. Both the Portrait Society of America and the UK\u2019s Royal Society of Portrait Painters \u2013 the two most august institutions of portrait painting, which not only promote portraiture, but also operate commissioning services that connect artists and subjects \u2013 report healthy demand. <\/p>\n

If one might worry that the smartphone<\/a> age \u2013 which has made the constant taking of pictures almost compulsive \u2013 would kill off portrait painting, it seems the reverse is the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cPortraiture is quite a big business within the art world, really, even if it is often portrayed as being rather traditional, in the sense of being concerned with old ideas of beauty in art,\u201d says Anthony Connolly, president of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd while a lot of institutions still commission portraits \u2013 the church, military, academia, corporations, heads of state and so on \u2013 portraiture is changing dramatically from the idea that it\u2019s an elitist thing to do. Now, it\u2019s more just a culture of people painting people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connolly argues that while a portrait is definitely a luxury item, for a one-off work by a highly skilled individual, and for something that will last generations, it can nonetheless represent very good value, \u201cespecially if you put it in the context of another bespoke item, the likes of a Savile Row suit<\/a>\u201d. <\/p>\n

Besides, portrait painters run the gamut as much in their price \u2013 from as little as Dh2,000 to much, much more \u2013 as they do in their style. <\/p>\n

Dubai artist Suzi Nassif, for example, creates portraits in surrealistic, sometimes cubist styles, with her subjects expressed more through unexpected colours and symbolism than an accurate likeness. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re imaginative portraits, more as I see them and not necessarily as the subjects might see themselves,\u201d says Nassif, who, once she has got to know her subject, prefers to then work from memory. \u201cThe power of the portrait is to examine the psyche behind the mask, and to do that I think it makes sense to use all the creative tools available to the painter.\u201d <\/p>\n

Certainly, while for an artist who prefers to work in person, a portrait might require the sitter to give perhaps two to three hours of their time, maybe four or five times over several months, it\u2019s also increasingly commonplace for artists to work in part or entirely from photographs. <\/p>\n

For example, artist Columbus Onuoha, who also lives in Dubai, is recognised for his photorealistic portraits in oil paint. Digital photography actually helps him zoom in on the precise details that make his portraits so arresting. It also allows him to tackle the work as inspiration strikes rather than be beholden to the sitter\u2019s schedule.<\/p>\n

Far from being put off by having their image rendered in exquisitely unforgiving detail, \u201cclients love the honesty of the results, the transparency\u201d, reckons Onuoha. \u201cThough, occasionally, people of a certain age want to be represented as a little younger than they are. But a portrait should be a record of a time of life. I tell my subjects to be proud of the age they are, though I sometimes do a self-portrait to remind myself how it feels.\u201d<\/p>\n

And how does being intimately examined, and then represented in paint, feel? Connolly, who is currently having his own portrait painted, suggests that far from being a discomforting experience \u201cit\u2019s very convivial, intimate without being salacious and almost like a kind of meditation. You feel like you\u2019re part of the painting process even though, of course, you\u2019re not painting the portrait.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet surely just having a photograph taken \u2013 even one by a professional \u2013 is faster and simpler? Yes, Onuoha agrees, but that is to miss the point of why people want to be painted. <\/p>\n

He argues that, while social media has certainly helped him to build a career, it\u2019s the very ubiquity of digital images \u2013 and the way they have democratised portraiture \u2013 that encourages many of his clients to want \u201csomething that\u2019s handmade, tangible, and that puts them at the centre of an artistic process\u201d, he says. \u201cThese people also tend to love art. They want to be involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

But others go further, arguing that a painted portrait simply catches what a photograph never can. <\/p>\n

As Christine Egnoski, chief executive of the Portrait Society of America, suggests, it reveals the qualities of a person unseen by a snap, \u201coffering the viewer a more real sense of the person\u2019s presence, as well as the artist\u2019s own expression. An artist adds the feeling of the person.\u201d It explains why, she argues, 10 million people queue to look at the Mona Lisa each year, and the enduring appeal of the portrait in art, both before and since the advent of photography.<\/p>\n

Frances Bell, portrait painter and recent winner of the Portrait Society of America\u2019s prestigious Draper Grand Prize, puts it another way. \u201cA painted portrait has something of the thrum of life about it, something transcendent \u2013 there\u2019s so much life on the canvas that it can feel like a window on another, sometimes historic world,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe artist is trying to work out who that person is \u2013 their mannerisms, how they hold themselves and so on \u2013 so the result understands something deeper than a photo can. It\u2019s not just a big selfie, but is very personal, which is why it\u2019s very important that a sitter pick the right painter for them.\u201d <\/p>\n

It\u2019s also why, she suggests, people so often turn to this special means of representing someone not out of vanity, but to mark a special moment in their life \u2013 an important anniversary, for example, or, as more than one of Bell\u2019s clients have done, to celebrate getting over a major illness. And why, so often, it\u2019s not the sitter who commissions the portrait for themselves, but a partner or family member. <\/p>\n

Sure, the result may never be hung in a gallery or a museum, but what better way to celebrate and immortalise an individual life than in paint? <\/p>\n

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pocketsSPEC%20SHEET%3A%20NOTHING%20PHONE%20(2)<\/p>\n

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Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi<\/p>\n

Director: Kangana Ranaut, Krish Jagarlamudi<\/p>\n

Producer: Zee Studios, Kamal Jain<\/p>\n

Cast: Kangana Ranaut, Ankita Lokhande, Danny Denzongpa, Atul Kulkarni<\/p>\n

Rating: 2.5\/5<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was, concedes Claudia Fisher, a lot of money to spend. \u201cI\u2019d never spent that kind of money…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[2606,18324,5105,7710,519,448,1715,1426],"class_list":{"0":"post-220775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-art","9":"tag-lifestyle-team","10":"tag-royal","11":"tag-royal-families","12":"tag-royal-family","13":"tag-royals","14":"tag-standard","15":"tag-story"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114759877722206168","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}