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Home>Learn>Families>An Eye for Art>Examining Portraits

# Examining Portraits

Portraits can describe a person’s physical likeness, status, personality, and/or interests. This chapter presents the range of ways artists represent people.

Discover a rare double-sided portrait by Leonardo da Vinci. Rich and powerful aristocrats and royalty had their portraits painted by the French artist Élisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun, and the emperor Napoleon posed for Jacques-Louis David. Introspective and enigmatic, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin painted self-portraits that express their personal styles, while Chuck Close creates large-scale portraits with surprising and innovative techniques.

As you examine the works in this chapter, consider what portraits reveal about the sitter and what they tell us about the artist.

Leonardo da Vinci**1452–1520**ItalianDownload PDF (11MB)

Élisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun and Jacques-Louis David**1755–1851 (Vigée Le Brun); 1748–1825 (David)**FrenchDownload PDF (8MB)

Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin**1853–1890 (Van Gogh); 1848–1903 (Gauguin)**Dutch (van Gogh); French (Gauguin)Download PDF (14MB)

Chuck Close**born 1940**AmericanDownload PDF (7MB)

Paperback editions of *An Eye for Art* are available for purchase.

Overview

Download PDFs:

John Constable (6.6MB)

Martin Johnson Heade and John James Audubon (7.2MB)

Claude Monet (14.9MB)

Georgia O'Keeffe (10.9MB)

Andy Goldsworthy (6MB)

Overview

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Rembrandt van Rijn (10MB)

Canaletto and Giovanni Paolo Panini (11MB)

Jasper Francis Cropsey (12MB)

Thomas Moran and George Catlin (11MB)

Henri Matisse and André Derain (11MB)

George Bellows (14MB)

Overview

Download PDFs:

Leonardo da Vinci (11MB)

Élisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun and Jacques-Louis David (8MB)

Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin (14MB)

Chuck Close (7MB)

Overview

Download PDFs:

Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi (11MB)

Rogier van der Weyden and Raphael (13MB)

Peter Paul Rubens (9MB)

John Singleton Copley and Claude-Joseph Vernet (8MB)

Augustus Saint-Gaudens (9MB)

Jacob Lawrence (8MB)

Overview

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Jan Steen and Hendrick Avercamp (14MB)

Osias Beert the Elder, Willem Claesz Heda, and Jan Davidsz de Heem (15MB)

Édouard Manet (10MB)

Mary Cassatt (11MB)

Winslow Homer (12MB)

Wayne Thiebaud (7MB)

Overview

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Giuseppe Arcimboldo (12MB)

Johannes Vermeer (8MB)

Joseph Mallord William Turner (7MB)

Pablo Picasso (11MB)

Joan Miró (14MB)

Diego Rivera (11MB)

Romare Bearden (9MB)

Jackson Pollock (19MB)

Roy Lichtenstein (8MB)

Overview

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Edgar Degas (8MB)

Alexander Calder (6MB)

Dan Flavin (3MB)

Martin Puryear (6MB)

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