Portraits

Since the beginning of the history of art, the portrays are one of the most favourite theme; during the ancient times, painters portrayed ancestors and emperors, big lords and their wives, traders, politicians, clerics. During the Modern Times, the subjects are influenced by every day life: a very famous example is Girl with a pearl earring by Johannes Vermeer, where, among many interpretations, we find the housekeeper/lover of the painter.

The importance of portrays in the history of art can be summarized in two different functions: encomiastic and commemorative. In both cases, portrait can be considered a tribute to someone who has marked history or has been important for the artist. In the contemporary world its function is not changed, but it is different the way of approaching it: during the past, they were extremely serious -for example, The old lady by Gustav Klimt- or dedicated to exalt the beauty of the subject, today the tones are definitely more ironic, for example the artwork by Carlo Massimo Franchi dedicated to the architect Gae Aulenti, where the woman's profile is repeated several times, on a coloured plexiglass that celebrates the Milan's skyline and the square dedicated to her (considered one of the most beautiful in the world).

Enrico Pambianchi, with his visionary hyperrealism, portrays, ironically, important people as Queen Elizabeth, Pope Innocenzo X, John Kennedy: the queen seems to be the protagonist of an horror movie, where a blood drop descends fearfully from her mouth, Kennedy is, ironically, portrayed with a big smile a second before being killed. Yux enjoys revisiting, sarcastically, faces of big personalities of the past and the present: Dante is portrayed while he is smoking a joint, Silvio Berlusconi as if he was Joker. Instead, Julian T accosts the face of a big immortal star (Freddie Mercury, Marilyn Monroe, Steve Jobs) to a colour’s stain, which is symbol of contingency, ephemeral immediacy: so, a simple portray becomes a concept that merges beauty, photographic art and poetry.