Family Portrait in the 21st Century and Gainsborough Painting - Essay Example

Some resist forming part of a family: these also serve to explain what a family is, so I have included the variety. Families are certainly born, but they can also be made, as mixed families and families with two moms, or two dads, show: this can be a political expression. The law and politics, human emotions, failings, and desires, as well as survival and reproductive success in the biological sense all, contribute to the notion of ‘family’ as we know it today. There are also fine and subtle variations determined by location (and dislocation, such as is caused by migration), race, religion, and a host of other complications devised, and brought about unwittingly, by humankind.

Lynden Stone, Family Portrait with Dog

2008 Redland Art Awards Queensland AUSTRALIA
http://www.redlandartawards.org.au/past_awards.html
Reproduced here for purposes of personal study

In this family portrait, the most important aspects are composition and palette. Prominence is given to the pet in the foreground. The color scheme also shows that the bespectacled boy, drawn in red, seems to have a preference for the shadowy presence of his sister, mom, and dad. All are unsmiling: this could have several reasons. Is the pet being given away? Is the boy in trouble? Are the boy and dog ganging up on the rest of the family? The three heads in the background could be snipped off at the corner, leaving the boy and dog, who occupy most of the frame. This possibility gives this family a fault line. All is not as happy as it looks at first look.

Lory Traugott Untitled
SMFA Boston Gallery
http://www.smfa.edu/enter-the-gallery
Reproduced here for reasons of personal study

The monotone color choice for this picture is deceptive, suggesting less happiness and unity than is visible on closer inspection. A mother and daughter are occupied in a yoga exercise that unites them in shape, concentration, and harmony. They are almost one shape, so they make a family: they are dressed similarly, and only a singular purpose could keep a person in that pose. They both want to do this very much. They like to be together: are all families like this? This picture looks old-fashioned, like a woodcut, but its premise is contemporary. A single mother can bring up her daughter alone and they can enjoy harmony.

Thomas Gainsborough The Gravenor Family
Yale Centre for British Art, Hartford, Connecticut
http://www.opaintings.com/artists/gainsborough/reproduction/3563/the-gravenor-family.html
Reproduced here for reasons of personal study

The Gravenor family looks very correct, contained, and harmonious, thanks to the artist’s composition and choices of color. Father, mother, and two daughters? Or father, wife, daughter, and grandmother? From this distance in time, both possibilities could tell different stories about this family, where the man seems slightly cut off from the triangle of female power that is closer to the central focus than he is. But he is the only standing figure, which might have meant power in those days. They have worn their finest clothes, perhaps, and sat quietly to be painted, but is the background added later, with grey clouds suggesting trouble on the horizon? This portrait looks boring at first sight, but close inspection makes it mysterious. There is wheat growing on the right side: what does it suggest?

René Magritte is Not to be reproduced
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Holland
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gatochy/466321387/
Reproduced here for reasons of personal study

The most important thing about this portrait is the title: Not To Be Reproduced. I understand that reproduction has a lot to do with families. This man does not want to form a family. He does not even want to exchange communication with the viewer. It is a surrealistic painting in which the reflection is manipulated by the artist to show the same view that the viewer sees, which is amusing and disturbing at the same time. What has this man got to hide? Is he afraid of interaction with other people? He is saying ‘This is not a family portrait!’ I have included it to show what a family portrait needs to show: at least two people. Here we have one, but he is split: part of him is afraid, and part of him wants to make a strong statement. He does not want to reproduce and have children.

Conclusion

These four pictures make the viewer understand what is meant by ‘family portrait’ in the 21st century. They help the viewer to define the concept. To have a family portrait, you need at least two people, and they must be related. Relationships in the 21st century can mean related by choice. In the 18th century, such as in the Gainsborough painting, it meant related by blood or kinship. It also shows that one can refuse to form a family, which strengthens the definition. Choices can be fulfilled better as the centuries pass. But they can also bring disharmony. 

Small two-person families are also very common nowadays: they suggest enormous shifts in communities and demand changes in society and the economy. There are more combinations, but these four show some differences that art can illustrate, and how many hidden meanings are to be found in art and life.

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