A Closer Look: Faces

Be it in portraits and narratives scenes, in allegories and paintings of everyday life, it is often the faces shown that communicate most directly in a picture, with expressions that reveal drama or character. The manner in which faces are painted show in striking ways the artistic aims and preoccupations of those who painted them. A Closer Look: Faces examines such issues as the changing faces, differing ideals of beauty, the ways in which portrait painters have captured a likeness and convey character, and how we read these facial expressions.

Author

Alexander Sturgis is Director of the Holburne Museum of Arts, Bath. Previously he was Exhibitions and Programmes Curator at the National Gallery, London. His publications include Telling Time and Rebels and Martyrs: The Image of the Artist in the Nineteenth Century.