Face to Face

Face to Face
Portraits from Joshua Reynolds to Julian Opie

16 September - 15 October 2006

At its simplest, a portrait is a representation of a person. Traditionally we think of this as a drawing or a painting but, of course, a portrait can take many other forms encompassing differing materials, techniques and styles. Images are photographed, videoed or impressed on coins. Heads can be carved out of stone, wood or plaster and moulded into metal. Different formats are possible - head, torso, full-length, double or group portraits. Formerly confined only to the rich and famous, anybody today knows their own portrait, even if only lodged in the family photo album. Portraiture has indeed come a long way.

And that is what this exhibition at Sherborne House aims to show - a journey in portraiture over the past 250 years ranging from the studied formalism of a classic pose in a Joshua Reynolds portrayal of the "noble savage" to a modern computer-driven portrait from Julian Opie.

It has been the intention, too, in this exhibition to show the extent of media available to portrait making. This embraces not only the traditional base of drawings, watercolours and oil paintings but also medallions, silhouettes, photographs, engravings, woodcuts, lithographs and sculpture. Such a range underlines the very diversity of portraiture.

A portrait is a meeting between the person recording the image and the sitter with the most successful revealing aspects of both personalities. Holbein's well-known depiction of Henry VIII courageously depicts a bloated and high-handed king and on seeing the painting we immediately know what Henry was like at that time. But, unlike some of his Queens, Henry did not consign the picture to extinction. In contrast Sir Winston Churchill so hated his retirement portrait by Graham Sutherland that Lady Churchill tactfully had the painting destroyed (a picture that would be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds today). On a personal level most of us know photographs of ourselves that we would wish could similarly meet with destruction.

Portraits are made to serve a number of different functions - to create a social record, to commemorate, even to disseminate propaganda. Portraits reflect the attitudes held by different generations particularly towards fame and celebrity, attitudes which have broadened over time. The actual portrayals can be simple or elaborate and "props" such as clothing or furnishings can add a further dimension. In this exhibition the Reynolds painting of Francis Barber in a loosely defined but magnificent cloak gives the sitter an air of nobility. Elsewhere Henriette E. Grace's The Honourable Mary Lawless is shown in a high-necked buttoned-up dress and a black straw hat conveying all the primness of late Victorian society. A wider audience will know Sir Anthony Van Dyke's vast and magnificent equestrian portrait of Charles I (National Gallery); in this painting Charles appears much larger than he was and splendidly regal, an impression that Charles was anxious to promote. The setting of any portrait has significant bearing on the final outcome.

Although artists exploit pose, dress and setting to convey character, the most important aspect always remains the face. Few portraits show the extreme expressions of anger or happiness and so instead artists rely on subtle variations of gaze, of lighting and of viewpoint to suggest a sitter's relation to the world. Most important in this regard is how the sitter appears to engage with us: do they turn towards us or avoid or stare; do they confront us; are they our equal or superior? Included in this exhibition there is a remarkable painting by the French painter Simon Bussy (a very great friend of Matisse) of Janie Bussy, his daughter. With her direct gaze, short bobbed hair and scarlet lips, the sitter immediately engages her audience, providing one of the most notable and arresting images from the whole show.

Our own huge sensitivity to the face carries other possibilities to the painter. Even the simplest of outlines, as in the Matisse drawing depicted in a poster, can pick up an immediate impression of character. Faces can be represented in the most abstract ways, yet we continue to recognise them as faces and indeed they can become more recognisable and expressive (something long understood by the caricaturist). In the exhibition this aspect can be noted in the computer generated portrait Ruth, Psychologist 3 by Julian Opie who produces recognisable likenesses with absolute economy but also in the expressive distortion of Edith Sitwell by Percy Wyndham Lewis.

So what makes a good portrait? There is clearly no definitive answer to this question and, as ever with art, it is up to the viewer to make up his or her mind. The varied collection of images brought together for this exhibition at Sherborne House all have their appeal and visitors will make their own evaluation of where to linger and where to pass on. Fortunately, each person has different perspectives and the hope of all those who have brought this exhibition about is that there is sufficient choice for most viewers to find at least one work to move or interest them.

If that can be achieved then it has all been worthwhile.
Tony Bradshaw.