Coursework.Info - Inspiration in an Instant

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History of portraiture Portraiture is a visual representation of an individual people, distinguished by references to the subject's character, social position, wealth, or profession. Portraitists often strive for exact visual likenesses. However, although the viewer's correct identification of the sitter is of primary importance, exact replication is not always the goal. Artists may intentionally alter the appearance of their subjects by embellishing or refining their images to emphasize or minimize particular qualities (physical, psychological, or social) of the subject. Viewers sometimes praise most highly those images that seem to look very little like the sitter because these images are judged to capture some non-visual quality of the subject. In non-Western societies portraiture is less likely to emphasize visual likeness than in Western cultures. Portraits can be executed in any medium, including sculpted stone and wood, oil, painted ivory, pastel, encaustic (wax) on wood panel, tempera on parchment, carved cameo, and hammered or...

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