EXHIBITION OVERVIEW

With the advent of the Renaissance, oil portraits in the West began the transition in earnest from its preoccupation primarily with the ecclesiastic to the secular. Portraits of royalty, the nobility and wealthy patrons make their first appearance, marking an epochal moment in Western painting—the rediscovery of humanity’s essential aesthetic appeal once appreciated by the Ancient Greeks and Rome. Having set upon this path, portrait painting took the next leap in its development in the 17th century. With the rise of affluent Dutch citizens, a demographic that rose to prominence as the Netherlands dominated global maritime commerce in the second half of that century, demand for portraits proliferated. That in turn fanned others in Europe, particularly among the aristocracy in France, England and Spain, who chose to adorn their courts and estates. Some, in fact, commissioned multiple portraits for themselves. By the second half of the 19th century, a new medium emerged to compete with oil painted portraits: photography. And its popularity spread as readily as a camera reproduces an object on film. Initially, people preferred their photographed portraits to appear as if they were paintings. But that would change as subjects realized that the medium had the unique ability to capture a single moment out of their lives, one not only revealing one’s mood but personality, even one’s very life, in that instant. Tokyo Fuji Art Museum’s “A Pageantry of Faces” is a tribute to portraits of every kind, be they painted, photographed or sculpted, and a tribute to the diversity of the human visage.