Portraits conveying mood and atmosphere

Go on the internet and find some portraits that convey a distinctive mood or atmosphere rather than simply a physical likeness. Look at Picasso’s blue paintings with their mood of surreal sadness or the dark earth colours of van Gogh’s early paintings of peasants seated around a fire in their poor, meagre surroundings. Look at the strong tonal contrast in Rembrandt’s portraits and the formidably restricted palette with which he seemed to convey the very essence of a person’s mood and personality. By contrast, consider the gaiety or the disturbing, nightmarish quality of the portraits and figure paintings of the Fauve painters and the German Expressionists.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-69)

Whenever I visit the Walker Art Gallery – Liverpool, which I do frequently, the permanent collection takes you through a small and deliberately darkened room that displays one of Rembrandt’s earliest self portraits. The 1629 painting, Self Portrait shows Rembrandt as a Young Man. While the Gallery’s curators and a Rembrandt authority, Professor Ernst van de Wetering have differing opinions whether this painting is actually by Rembrandt, or by the hand of one of his many students, I will focus on the mood and atmosphere Rembrandt self-portraits convey.

Rembrandt was probably the most important Dutch painter of the seventeenth-century. He was a prolific painter of self-portraits, producing almost a hundred of them throughout his artistic career. Perhaps equivalent to the modern day selfie, his self-portraits provide a remarkably insight of the man, his looks, and most telling – his emotional misfortune and sorrow are conveyed through his command of light and dark. I feel the latter, these strong tonal contrasts not only evoke a sense of mood and atmosphere, but they also draw the viewer into the painting. While this self-portrait (see figure 1) is one of his earliest, we see Rembrandt master this technique as me matures and develops.

His use of chiaroscuro subtle with backgrounds of dark sepia or umber, as opposed to the black of Caravaggio’s paintings. Hair and attire are nearly always dark, affording the greatest contrast to the skin, which is brown and shining, often highlighting a focal point of the face.

Fig. 1. Rembrandt (1631). Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. [Oil, panel]
Liverpool: Walker Gallery.

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Fuelled by the death of his close friend Carlos Casagemas and his view of social disparity as he ventured through Spain in 1901, Picasso’s blue period reflects his own depression and the bleakness of political and social instability; prisoners, prostitutes, beggars and poor or despairing people in general. Not only did this theme influence Picasso’s blue mood, but it also answered to the spirit of the time. His portraits conveyed mood and atmosphere through austere colour and a disturbing sense of anguish.

This was a stark change in artistic direction when compared to his first Paris exhibition for Vollard in June 1901. Here, his paintings were bright and sensual with a noticeable influence of the Impressionists – there was no blue. When the blue period came into its own the objects were sharply-contoured, with little intent to make three-dimensional images and, eventually, abandoned the tradition of perspective drawing. His palette became less diverse, the accents of grey-blue and light -blue-green deep cold colours became more visible.

While Picasso had trouble selling his paintings at the time, I feel they are as poignant in the twenty-first century as they were at the time. They shine a light on today’s social imbalance; homelessness, refugees and those living day-to-day on the poverty line. Crouching Woman, 1902, (see figure 2) shows a women crouched, arms folded, face hidden from view. She turns her back on society, as society has turned is back on her. Picasso’s Tragedy, 1903, (sse figure 3) portrays three figures gathered together on a beach. There is no sign of disaster. Together, but solitary the adults do not make eye-contact nor comfort one another or the child. Despite it title perhaps this painting is more subjective rather than in reference to any particular single event.

Fig. 2. Picasso, P. (1902). Crouching woman. [oil/canvas] Stuttgart, Germany: Staatsgalerie
Fig. 3. Picasso, P. (1902). Tragedy. [oil, wood] New York: Chester Dale Collection © 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS).

Vincent van Gogh (1853-90)

Van Gogh’s Potato Eaters, paintings of Dutch peasants, was inspired by the realism of Millet and Courbet. They are dark and sombre in mood, reflecting a harsh existence behind each face. To accentuate this, van Gogh uses dark earth tones with darker hues and heavy shadows to portray worn, unwashed clothes and expressionless, weather-beaten faces that are ingrained with dirt.

The van Gogh museum suggests that in n deliberately choosing a difficult composition, van Gogh was trying to prove himself to becoming a good figure painter, and the message of the painting was more important to Van Gogh than correct anatomy or technical perfection. (Vangoghmuseum.nl, 2019) While this appears to be a contradiction in terms of what van Gogh was trying to achieve, there is also logic in van Gogh’s approach in pushing personal boundaries as an artist but also portraying his socialist sympathies. This may explain why his painting were criticised and not well received at the time.

From a personal perspective, I feel that this is some of van Gogh’s finest work. His subject matter, vigorous brush marks and soberly colours create an atmosphere of hardship and poverty, allowing atmosphere to override their simply a physical likeness.

Fig. 4. van Gogh, V. (1884). Head of a peasant – Study for ‘The Potato Eaters. [oil on canvas] New South Wales: Art Gallery of NSW
Fig. 5. van Gogh, V. (1884). Head of a women. [oil on canvas] Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum.

Oskar Kokoska (1886-1980)

Self-Portrait, One Hand Touching the Face (1918-19) (see figure 6) exhibits an unparalleled sensitivity that is synonymous of Kokoschka’s portraits. His assured and pastose application of paint and deliberately chosen hand gesture depicts a subject’s emotional state on the canvas. The emotional crisis of Kokoschka; abandoned by his beloved and debilitated by the Great War, is almost physically palpable in this painting. His disturbed gaze and the gesture of placing a hand before his face clearly express the artist’s lost and confused state and heighten the emotionally unstable impression he gives us.

Fig. 6. Oskar Kokoschka, Self-Portrait, One Hand Touching the Face, 1918-19
Leopold Museum, Vienna

Felix Nussbaum (1904-44)

Art has been used extensively for the purpose of propaganda and for telling the horrors of war and atrocity. Felix Nussbaum was a German artist who artistic style and subjects changed to reflect the outbreak of war, life in the Nazi death camps and life as Jew in Europe during WWII.

Fear (1941), portrays Nussbaum with his Niece Marianne. Their facial expressions and Nussbaum’s hand cradled across the face of his Niece, pulling her close, convey a sense of trauma, exhaustion and silent cowering from the onslaught of the German invasion and their horrible predicament. This may be a symbol of melancholy, hopelessness and death yet in the midst of this dark and despairing scene we see a glimmering street light above Marianne’s head. Even the shadow of death, it appears that Nussbaum still held on to a glimmer of hope that he and his loved ones would somehow survive.

The artists use of blue and orange complementary colours, and his use of light adds further intensity to this painting.

Fig. 7. Fear; Self-Portrait with his Niece Marianne, 1941, Felix Nussbaum

Lucien Freud (1922-2011)

Lucian Freud’s paintings of people reflect great intimacy with his sitters. With the exception of a few public figures, his painting was an autobiographical manner of keeping a record, preferring to paint people he knew well. His work was about him and his surroundings. Even when he was painting the background of a painting he preferred the his subject to be present because of an atmosphere or aura that he, or she created.

Man in a blue shirt (1965) is a portrait of George Dyer, Francis Bacon’s lover. He looks down, a troubled expression on his face. While Bacon’s paintings depicted him as a turbulent character, Freud shows him to be a more vulnerable man. He paints his harelip and his broken nose. The redness of his exposed chest is made more intense by the blueness of his shirt. Dyer committed suicide in 1971. (Npg.org.uk, n.d.)

While many art critics and historians will debate the work of Freud for centuries to come, I am drawn to its shameless honesty of the human form. It conveys a real sense of the sitters (and painters) mood and feeling. They are timeless – and they are of their time.

Fig. 8. Man in a blue shirt (1965) Lucian Freud
Private Collection (Freud, 1965, p. 105)

References

Elsby, L. (n.d.). Felix Nussbaum: Self Portraits of a Jew in Turmoil. [online] Yadvashem.org. Available at: https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/felix-nussbaum.html [Accessed 29 May 2019].

Freud, L., Howgate, S., Auping, M. and Richardson, J. (2012). Lucian Freud. London: National Portrait Gallery, pp.14-32.

Leopoldmuseum.org. (n.d.). Oskar Kokoschka, Self-Portrait, One Hand Touching the Face [online] Available at: https://www.leopoldmuseum.org/alte en/leopold collection/ masterpieces/39 [Accessed 29 May 2019].

Npg.org.uk. (n.d.). [online] Available at: https://www.npg.org.uk/freudsite/freud_handlist2.pdf [Accessed 29 May 2019].

Nga.gov. (2019). Pablo Picasso’s The Tragedy. [online] Available at: https://www.nga.gov/features/slideshows/pablo-picasso-the-tragedy.html [Accessed 24 May 2019].

Pablopicasso.net. (2019). The Tragedy by Pablo Picasso. [online] Available at: http://www.pablopicasso.net/tragedy/ [Accessed 24 May 2019].

Vangoghmuseum.nl. (2019). The Potato Eaters – Van Gogh Museum. [online] Available at: https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0005V1962 [Accessed 27 May 2019].

http://www.pablopicasso.net/tragedy/ [Accessed 24 May 2019].

http://www.pablopicasso.org. (2009). Pablo Picasso’s Blue Period.
[online] Available at: https://www.pablopicasso.org/blue-period.jsp [Accessed
24 May 2019].