Celebrating the World’s Best Portrait and Figurative Artworks

The Portrait Society of America selected its International Portrait Competition finalists.

The Portrait Society of America's International Portrait Competition has announced its 20 finalists. “Young Artist Sketching a Bird” by Mark Pugh of Utah. Oil on graphite, on linen mounted panel; 60 inches by 36 inches. Courtesy of the Portrait Society of America

How representational portrait and figurative artists accurately render people seems almost miraculous. Seasoned artists, however, know better. They’ve shed the sweat and tears on the path to mastery. Renaissance genius Michelangelo lived it. “If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all,” he wrote.

In Michelangelo’s day, an artist’s rite of passage involved an apprenticeship, which provided day-to-day camaraderie with fellow artists who worked beside him. From the 17th through the 19th centuries, European art academies taught aspiring artists to first be proficient in drawing ancient sculptures in charcoal. This could take up to a year before graduating to a live model. Then they had to conquer live-model drawing before they could learn to paint in color. 

Few art institutions today offer authentic training and experiences; now, most representational artists must work alone. 

For decades, representational art (art created true to life) has been marginalized in favor of modern art. Many museums and art galleries around the world have relegated to the backrooms the fine art that their collections were founded upon to champion nontraditional art forms. Mainstream media and art educational institutions have followed suit.

Many established representational artists have had to search long and hard for authentic, traditional art training. These artists must trailblaze anew those centuries-old traditions for the next generation of artists.

However, aspiring representational artists today can rest assured that there’s a renaissance of traditional art. In recent decades, there’s been a worldwide resurgence of art ateliers teaching classical painting and sculpture. While there’s still headway to be made in museums and galleries, many new organizations have emerged in support of representational art, such as the Florence Academy of Art (founded in 1991) in Florence, Italy; the Art Renewal Center (founded in 1999) in New Jersey; and the Grand Central Atelier (established in 2006) in New York City, to name a few.