Portraits - Free Essay Sample

Introduction

A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person. A portrait intends to display the likeness of a personality and the person's mood being drawn. A portrait is a genre in painting with the intention of representing specific human topics or subjects. Portraits can also be used to describe the actual painted portrait. Portraitists create work by commission, the public, and private persons, and are inspired by their admiration for different subjects and their love for a particular subject. Portraits serve an important function in a country or family record and remembrances. Creating a portrait requires several considerations and different environments according to different artists.

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Portraits can take a lot of time to complete, thus requiring different settings. Portraits can be rough or complex compositions that require a pencil, ink sketch, and charcoal. Artists play a different and important part in contributing to the overall development of the well-being of society. Artists make societies and communities get joy, interactions, and give inspiration. Work of art also gives a thoughtful critique of the community's political, social and economic systems. Artists should work to illuminate the margins and make societal changes. They do this by expressing their emotions, goals, and ideas in the personal, social, and political realm and communicating their individual experience.

Women's roles in society have been depicted as many think. In most societies, women have been described as mothers, maids, wives, and cooks. Men are the ones who are recognized as major providers and leaders. Various artists from various places and religions have made many arts and portraits to portray women, not as leaders, thinkers, and investors in many societies. Women were supposed to undertake all those duties. While they were prohibited from undertaking activities and duties related to men, this would mean they are trying to gain control over the men, which would be against the will of men and the law. The paper will look at some of the portraits made to show women's various roles in society.

Motherhood

Motherhood, oil on wood is a great painting that portrays the role of women in society. The painting was made in the Egyptian setting and is in the Egyptian museum. The portrait was made by Inji Efflatoun, who was born to a Francophone family of wealthy landowners. She began doing art in 1942 at the age of 18 years and has a series of works exhibited in the Art et Liberte exhibition in Cairo. She studied art with leading Egyptian surrealist kamal el- telmissary and was among the most prominent women artist of her generation in the mi 20th century.

In her portrait of motherhood, she drew an image of a pregnant mother, who also is carrying a small baby who is being nursed. The art is in the village setting with a background of earth-toned and stone coloring. The painting was made in the 1950s and was a representation of what women do in society. According to the art, it is clear that most women are described as mothers. The art shows a pregnant woman who also is holding another small child who is also nursing. Women in Egyptian society would be seen as child bearers.

Getting children and taking care of the family was mostly the sole responsibility of women in most of the setup. According to the portrait, women are supposed to stay home and let their husbands go get jobs, become providers, and be leaders. Women are shown to be staying in the home or in the village doing chores such as cooking and being maids. Women getting would not be allowed to take leadership and thinkers' role because it is clearly shown that they cannot get time to do other things in society because they would be very busy taking care of their children. Women would also not have a say in the society as it is seen they also had no control over the number of children they can have. The woman in the portrait is pregnant and has a little child who has not finished being nursed.

The art is a perfect example of women's role in society in homes and in religion. Most of the women were not given a chance to become leaders, thinkers, and investors. It is said that most societies do not recognize women as important people in society and are only recognized as wives and maids whose works are only to take care of house chores and take care of husbands and children.

The Palmer Family

Another portrait was the palmer family by James Leakey in 1822. The portrait shows a family of Samuel and Mary palmer who lived st Newington in the 1820s. They were happy and enjoyed a considerable comfort where they were supported a decade later by a cook: a footman and a housemaid. Samuel palmer described himself as an interested business person. Samuel was interested in shooting as he had many rifle collections. Mary's occupation was unknown. The portrait shows a family set up with a man, wife and child, and a dog. Samuel is the home leader, as it is clearly shown in the portrait standing beside his wife holding a gun. The portrait also explains that Samuel, the man in the portrait, is the one who is interested in doing business and investing. It is shown in the portrait that the man is the protector of the family.

The portrait has clearly described the woman as a mother. She is holding her child in her hands. As a mother, it is her responsibility to take care of her child and take care of her child's needs. A woman is also supposed to take care of her husband. A woman mostly does house chores. According to the portrait, chores such as washing, making the house, and even caring for their animals are women's duties in the woman's set up portrait. Cooking is also a chorus for women. As a mother, the woman should feed her husband, child, and dog, so she is taken as a cook.

The information given in the portrait's footnote gives an insight that women did not participate in doing the business. The footnotes state that the husband Samuel was the one who always wanted to be a business person and had an interest in it. As a leader, the woman mary is not included in the leadership of the family. Samuel is the family leader because he is holding the gun, showing that he is the protector and the family leader. Mary, the woman, is not mentioned anywhere in the portrait as a thinker because Samuel is the provider. Hence, he should be involved in thinking and making decisions for the family in their best interest. Mary is also shown to be a book as the portrait's history shows that they sometimes earned their living by cooking and as a housemaid.

Perfect Family

In the German art gallery, a portrait of the Perfect Family by Hans Schmidt- Wiedenbruck is a good example of how society looks and describes a woman and how they portray it in society. Hans Schmitz was born in Lippstadt. He was a son of a hotel caretaker and started to be in trained arts in the studio of Heinrich Repke in Wiedebrunk, where he worked for seventeen years. His artwork has brought him many awards, such as Die Neue Deutsche Familie, The great award state award of the Prussian Academy of arts in 1939, and others. He specialized in oil painting and sold many of them to prominent government officers. His work of art is considered to be Nazis propaganda art. His endorsement for a professorship at the Dusseldorf art academy in 1943 illustrates the Nazi regime's sympathies for this artist.

His work on the perfect family portrait shows women's role in German society during the Nazi era. The portrait of a perfect family has two women, three children, and a man. one woman seems to be the older one, obviously, the mother, and the other is a young woman. The older woman, as a mother, is seen to be holding and nursing a young child. She is the mother of four children. Women in Nazi society were considered to be mothers and excluded from bigger responsibilities. Women, also in the portrait, is seen as the maid. Maids are supposed to take care of people and clean. Having four children, a woman is the one who will wash their clothes, take care of the house, and make sure the house is clean and well presentable.

The woman describes the portrait as a wife. In the perfect family portrait, for a family to be complete and be perfect, a woman should be there as a wife. Wives are the ones who should take care of children, their husbands, and bear children. They should also be submissive to their husbands. The portraits demonstrate how women sadly are not portrayed as leaders. It shows the man with no responsibility in the house, thus assuming that they are the one who usually takes care of the outside business. The man in the portrait is also shown as a leader. He is the one sitting close to the door, meaning he is the protector and the family leader.

In the Nazi community, men are used to fighting, be soldiers, and guard their families; hence, they are portrayed as the people in charge of the family's protection, that is, the leaders. The older girl, who is a teenager, is talking and playing with her younger sibling. It looks like she is taught the art of responsibility to become a better future mother, wife, maid, and be married by a successful husband. It can be seen in the portrait that boys and men do not have a lot of responsibilities in the house. The boy in the portrait, who is still young, is playing with his toys and does not seem concerned with what is going on in the house.

Conclusion

Spiridione Roma is another portraitist who describes and portrays women as mothers, cooks, maids, and wives in his work of art. He was born in Corfu, known as the territory of the Republic of Venice. The east Indian company commissioned his art The East Offering its Riches to Britannia. His work on the painting generally represents the eras panegyric to Britains' imperial and colonialist domination. His portrait the east offers its riches to Britannia is now held in London's British commonwealth office and its replica in British national trust.

The portrait itself is a drawing in which men seem to give commands, and the women are seen to be serving men and doing other activities. There is also a lion sitting beside the man and children playing near the women. In the portrait, women are described as mothers as shown; children are playing beside them. As mothers, they should take care of their children, and children are likely to associate themselves with them more than they associate themselves with men. In the far background, another woman is carrying a small child; thus, it is seen that the portrait demonstrates the role of women in society as mothers.