Vision in Portraiture

NARRATOR:Listen to part of a discussion in an art history class.

MALE PROFESSOR:All right, let's continue our discussion of portrait artists and portraiture.Who remembers, uh, any of the important points we made last time? Sandra?

FEMALE STUDENT:Um, well, artists have done portraits of people for centuries, of famous people and regular people, and ah... most portraits convey the artist's-uh, personal vision, like their feelings and insights about a person.

MALE PROFESSOR:Great. That's a crucial point, and I'd like to explore that a little today.A great example of that-that vision in portraiture is Cecilia Beaux.

Cecilia Beaux was born in 1855, and after learning to paint and studying with several important artists of the time,Beaux became known as one of the best portrait painters in the United States.She was very successful-she even did portraits of the wife and children of Theodore Roosevelt while he was president.So, it didn't get much more prestigious than that.Now, those portraits also reflect the kind of subjects that Beaux tended to use, which was mostly women and children.For example, in her first major work her subjects were, uh... the painting featured her sister and her nephew.Yes, Mark?

MALE STUDENT:Yeah, it just seems interesting... um. I was wondering if that was unusual,to have a portrait artist who was a woman become so well known and successful in the nineteenth century.

MALE PROFESSOR:Great question. Yeah, she really stood out back in the eighteen-hundreds, and today she's still considered one of the greatest portrait painters of her time, male or female.

[admiring, excited]In fact, she was the first full-time female instructor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and she was a full member of the National Academy of Design.These were pretty important institutions. So, yeah, she definitely made headway for women artists.

OK, so... let's look at one of her portraits now.

This painting is called The Dreamer, it's one of my favorites,and I think it's especially characteristic of Beaux's work.So what you see here is a portrait of a close friend of Cecilia Beaux's.So tell me, what's the first thing that draws you to this painting,what catches your eye first?

FEMALE STUDENT:Well, for me it's her face and hands.I think they're really expressive, and also, they make the woman seem very contemplative.Seems like she's thinking pretty seriously about something.

MALE STUDENT:Yeah, her eyes kind of draw you in, but what strikes me is the contrasting colors, the-the white dress and the dark background.It kinda reminds me of that painting we discussed a few weeks ago, by um, uh, John Singer Sargent.I think it was called Madame X?

MALE PROFESSOR:I agree, good point. Yes, Beaux had high regard for Sargent's work.And this is something, a technique, that you'll find in both of their work.Ok, but, the painting is called "The Dreamer." What do you see that's dream-like about it?

FEMALE STUDENT:[upspeak, as if unsure]Well the background, behind the woman-it's pretty vague.FEMALE STUDENT:Like maybe there's, there's no real context, like, no definite surroundings, especially compared to the woman herself, since she's so clear and well defined.

MALE PROFESSOR:Yes, the unclear background definitely contributes to that dreaminess.It's meant to show a sense of isolation, I think, where the woman is deep in a daydream and not really aware of anything else.

This painting shows how insightful Cecilia Beaux was as a portrait artist.Besides her excellent technical skills—like her use of brush strokes and color to make an impression—Beaux’s perspective comes through, her portraits reveal her own interpretation of her subject’s state of mind.This is what it's all about, not just likenesses.

Now, the undefined background also shows how Cecilia Beaux was influenced by the French Impressionists, who believed-like Beaux- in a personal rather than conventional approach to their subject matter.Beaux used some Impressionist techniques and shared much of their philosophy, but her style-it was all her own.