Portrait of the week
Jonathan Jones explores the art of the portrait
Portrait of the artist: Meera Syal, actor and writer
'Typecasting's inevitable for black and Asian actors. But it happens to everyone, whether they're fat, posh or ginger'
Portrait of the artist: Beth Ditto, singer
'I hate being in the audience. I don't want to be entertained - I want to entertain'
Portrait of an artist: Lynne Ramsay, film-maker
'Who'd play me in a movie? Jimmy Stewart and Dennis Hopper'
Face facts
Portraiture is trivial. Its function is to flatter rather than truly capture the sitter. That's what Jonathan Jones thought when he started writing a series about the genre - until this Raphael masterpiece changed his mind.
Chair, Vincent van Gogh (1888)
Oh, the emotion. Perhaps Gauguin should have worried about what his friend was feeling when he portrayed both of them like this - gone, vanished, leaving only their old familiar chairs.
Self-portrait at the Age of 63, Rembrandt (1669)
This painting would communicate agony and acceptance even if we knew nothing about Rembrandt's life, the spectacular success followed by bankruptcy and, by this time, the deaths of almost everyone he loved.
Triumphs of Caesar, Andrea Mantegna (c1485-94)
The unseen subject of Mantegna's painting is war; the looted statues, vases, treasure, slaves, were all obtained by slaughter. Mantegna does not let us forget the reality behind the victory.
Madonna With Child and Two Angels, Filippo Lippi (c1465)
Renaissance painters made the relation between Mary and child that of a real mother and baby. Here, the Madonna is a beauty to whom Christ and Lippi are in thrall.
Saint Margaret, Raphael (1518)
She stands victorious, delicately holding a triumphal palm and tenderly stepping on the beast's wing with her naked foot. Her body's contours are sensually visible under her bright blue and red robes.
Richard Southwell, Holbein (c1536)
This an immaculate, wonderful drawing. We seem to sit alongside Holbein as he observes this face from life, 500 years ago.
The Cheat, Georges de La Tour (c1635-40)
It might be just deserts for the peacock followers of fashion he is playing with, whose flouncy headdresses make them seem to have less inside their heads than they wear outside.
Andrea Doria, Bronzino (c1532-33 or after 1545)
The painting consciously equates naval and sexual prowess, as Neptune/Doria holds aloft a thick-shafted trident in front of a powerful mast
Judith with the Head of Holofernes, Lucas Cranach the Elder (c1530)
The warrior's head is bearded and its dead eyes roll: the muscles and tubes in his neck are opened for our inspection in a red mass. Judith takes all this in her stride.
Alof de Wignacourt, Caravaggio (c1607-08)
The man is a gnarled, weathered, graceful thug, the skin of his face rough and reddened. This ruggedness is made lovely by bronze light, turning him gold and russet.
Belshazzar's Feast, Rembrandt (c1635)
While his bewildered eyes are fixed on the sinister glowing text, his left arm rises to protect himself, as if he faces a physical rather than a spiritual attack.
Costanza Caetani, Fra Bartolommeo (c1480-90)
Self-possession glows in her. She seems almost arrogant, challenging the viewer to a fight, despite the delicacy with which she holds a bunch of flowers.
Shah Jahan as a Prince, Nadiru'l Zaman (c1616-17)
Flowers fill the painting in gouache and gold: among the blossoms the prince himself is a young bloom, a promise of springtime, renewal.
The Robing of the Bride, Max Ernst (1940)
It's a troubling, glorious thing, this picture. Seeing it in a gallery is like encountering a screaming exotic bird in a cathedral.
Benjamin Disraeli, John Everett Millais (1881)
This painting is dramatic, sculpted. Or perhaps it's Disraeli, at 75, who is dramatic and sculpted. Millais makes him monumental, and more enigmatic than ever.
Marquise de Seignelay and Two of Her Children, Pierre Mignard (1691)
Magically transported from Paris to Italy, from the misery of widowhood to a mythic potency, the marquise mourns her naval husband and moves on.
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