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The vast scope of contemporary artistic creation and its expressive diversity often cause confusion about its meaning, application, and goals.

And yet, the function of art in our lives remains the same as ever, even if its application is sometimes different – and let’s admit it – also more challenging. An artist who observes contemporary society and its needs naturally responds to them in his works, and that is the essential contribution of his activity, as well as the great significance of his mission.

Ivan Sedliský has been engaged in the artistic exploration of the role of paintings in modern interiors and exteriors for years. Born in 1926, he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, where he was a student of Vratislav Nechleba. His view of art is primarily focused on human beings, who are the central theme of his works. The female figure dominates, an ever-living and fascinating subject from the very beginnings of art.

Ivan Sedliský presents his latest paintings, which, while continuing his previous work, clearly show a transformation in his perception of humanity, its inner world, and social ideals. Sedliský has always been characterized by his admiration for humanity. He was fully aware that changes in the structure of life alter not only people's appearance but also their perspectives. His portraits of women are clear evidence of this. This is how modern women look, and this is how we perceive them.

Sedliský has abandoned idealization but has found a new, truthful expression both in universally valid reality and in intimate reality. He delves deeper into the meaning of life (The Paths We Take, Critique of One's Own Reason), setting greater challenges in his artistic expression.

Through its diversity of artistic expression, Sedliský's work captivates mainly with its richness of content, communicative power, and the quality of artistic execution—elements that are often overlooked and undervalued today.

Jaroslav Hlaváček

PAINTER IVO SEDLISKÝ — THE QUEST FOR THE 20TH-CENTURY PORTRAIT

When looking at famous Renaissance portraits, at the works of Velázquez, Rembrandt, Goya, or the portraits of Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, and later Modigliani or Picasso, we can trace three elements corresponding to the fundamental requirements of this specific painting genre: First, the painter strives to capture the likeness of the portrayed person as faithfully as possible while also conveying the atmosphere and environment of the time. Second, the psychological aspect and inner world of the portrayed person must be captured. Finally, as in any work of art, the painter incorporates their own concept, beliefs, and overall philosophical and social perspective. Although the range between the effort to depict the subject as realistically as possible and a complete detachment from reality may be vast, a portraitist must encompass all three of these elements. Therefore, the portrait, as a painting, is closely linked to a high level of artistic discipline.

Due to societal changes, technical inventions, and research in the field of physics in the mid-19th century, these requirements transformed. The portrait ceased to be a commissioned work, lost its documentary character, and eventually abandoned the demand for resemblance to the portrayed person. The psychological and artistic aspects of the work gained significance, eventually dominating the painter’s own concept and philosophical outlook. Since portraitists could no longer find buyers for their works, they began painting their friends and people whose world was close and appealing to them. This led to a new form of relationship between the painter and their model, where the model explored themselves, and the painter increasingly sought self-expression. Thus, one can speak of mutual individual self-reflection. However, if the portraitist chooses their models as they would choose any other subject—landscapes or still lifes—the person becomes merely an artistic object, and the classical balance between the portrayed and the painter is lost.

Painter Ivo Sedliský set himself the goal of reviving the portrait as such—in other words, to rediscover the portrait of the 20th century. He seeks to restore harmony between the portrayed and the painter. He wants to bear witness to the people of our time and, through them, document the positive values of humanity.

The modern world, in all creative expressions, works with shortcuts. It is especially difficult for a portraitist to find a concentrated expression of objective human reality through their own stylization. Sedliský is primarily a portraitist of beautiful women, often famous women—Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale, Monica Vitti—who interest him as human types, and whose expressions he attempts to give an identity according to his own vision. He places creative emphasis primarily on the lips and eyes of these women. He situates them in environments that complement their character and, through succinct means, seeks to express the subjective emotions of the portrayed woman. His female portraits thus reflect the face of our time, a new type of woman representing the triumph of beauty.

That is why he gladly returns to these faces, each time striving to get closer to the inner life of contemporary humans and their relationship to the world. This represents a new—and increasingly profound—psychological approach. In Sedliský’s latest portraits, we can observe how the human being transforms—the calm expression of the face comes to life, the flatness of the background disappears. Large portraits of Monica Vitti, Julie Christie, and Pablo Picasso stand as clear milestones in his work.

Painter Ivo Sedliský is fascinated by the human face, just as ancient Roman and Egyptian artists once were, and because he has set himself the goal of discovering the portrait of the 20th century, his work remains a continuous search and experiment.

March 17, 1977

SEARCHING FOR TYPICALITY

Since its inception, art has followed two paths: it either depicts the general through the individual, unique, or even peculiar, or, on the contrary, it synthesizes these individual elements into a whole to create a type.

The work of IVAN SEDLISKÝ is, from this perspective, a unique case (perhaps even on a global scale) of a painter’s search for the second path. In his work, Ivan Sedliský systematically returns to the old values of painting and its composition, much like Cézanne once did, as did Ingres before him, or the Renaissance masters, and later in the 20th century, artists such as Matisse, Picasso (in parts of his work), and others.

Born in Ostrava in 1926, Sedliský studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (1946-1952) under Professor V. Nechleba and later served as his assistant until 1960. Even in Nechleba’s work, there is a strong respect for classical principles, a deep research-like interest in reality reminiscent of the analogy between painting and science in Leonardo da Vinci’s studies. However, Ivan Sedliský developed these influences in a distinctly different direction. Visitors to his current exhibition at the Brothers Čapek Gallery in Prague can see this for themselves. Sedliský does not deny a certain decorative quality in his work, but this is not mere aestheticism—it is deeply meaningful and functional. It is connected to his reverence for the old master techniques, where a painting, unlike a photograph, is not a direct copy of reality but a specific reflection, a new reality that is more analogous than imitative, more generalizing than analytical.

It is no coincidence that the artist also returns to the thematic method of classical periods—allegory. As in Baroque, Renaissance, Medieval, and ancient allegories, the “measure of all things,” the protagonist of his paintings, is the human figure depicted in a typical environment—a slice of reality that can symbolize the entirety of the world. Sedliský is one of the most prominent portrait painters of today; landscapes in his work play only a supporting role, and even when he paints flowers, these paintings are intrinsically connected to the portrait aspect of his work.

Ivan Sedliský does not shy away from contemporary issues. Themes of humans and machines, humans and civilization, and the relationship between tradition and the future hold a permanent place in his work. He does not exhibit frequently in our country (his last exhibition in Prague was in 1963), which is why his current exhibition at the Brothers Čapek Gallery in Prague is attracting well-deserved attention.

We can say about the painter Ivan Sedliský that he seeks a painting method that would allow him to depict everything.

How he searches and what he means by “everything” must be understood from his paintings.

His search is, in a way, rational and sober, programmatically anti-illusionist. He starts from the belief that a painting is a surface and that there is no reason to consider it as an illusionistic breakthrough into three-dimensional space. He rejects, excludes, or minimizes the means by which a painting might appear as an opening into a space filled with plastic and volumetric objects: the gradation of light and tones, the spatial effects of color chords.

He fully embraces decorativism, with a distinct tendency toward comprehensive, powerful, clearly readable forms, precisely defined, dynamic, and expressive.

The expressive dynamics of his drawing openly draw from the same sources and forces that shape objects in modern technical and industrial civilization. He often translates this vocabulary and, with great enthusiasm, introduces citations from old artworks: figures from Renaissance paintings, well-known sculptures, characters from Greek vases, or Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The surface of his paintings is roughened by brush marks, but without the intention of fixing an effect-driven gesture or ostentatiously declaring the passion behind the painting process. It is a pictorially structured surface, but not expressively plastic.

The reality of a painting is not the depicted reality. It is rather a statement about reality, an expression in an aesthetic code. Sedliský selects from a broad range of possibilities.

According to his talent and temperament, he chooses modes of expression that allow him to communicate as fully and broadly as possible with viewers.

His paintings require not only emotional engagement but also imagination and intellect, much like viewers in the past had to decipher the works of Botticelli or Giovanni Bellini through analysis of the symbolic meaning of depicted elements.

By doing so, we realize that Sedliský’s paintings are almost epic, rich in content, and deeply thoughtful.

As far as I know, Sedliský has never painted landscapes. His main focus is on human figures and faces—not in the usual sense of portraiture, as he is not concerned with the individuality of the subjects, but rather with their typology. He seeks to integrate them into broader historical contexts, relating their individuality to their era and social circumstances, or conveying meaning through visual symbols and allegories.

Sedliský’s work is unique, standing apart from current trends in Czech painting, yet it has its circle of admirers despite being rarely exhibited.

Václav Formánek

IVO SEDLISKÝ is a figurative artist and has always been one, even in times when landscape painting was the most favored genre among the Czech public. From the very beginning of his artistic career—and since he is no longer young, this means a considerable number of years—he has painted people; sometimes portraits, but mostly figures into which he strives to project the typical attitudes and mentality of his time, the archetypal representatives of certain social relationships.

He paints them in situations and scenes that he considers equally typical, whether their configurations are real, fictional, or imaginative, whether he depicts them using optically realistic methods, abstract painting, or combinations of various approaches. These principles have firmly anchored his painting throughout all the years I have known it.

Sedliský's paintings are characterized by inventiveness in spatial composition, a sense of clear and expressive form, and a restrained use of color—a quality that, if the artist so intends, can suddenly explode into surprising color harmonies. Sedliský is capable of both austere and expressively dynamic expressions, depending on what he aims to convey; above all, he truly masters his craft.

His audience has never needed to be convinced of this aspect of his work. Since he is fascinated by human behavior in its many life situations, particularly enjoying painting works that seem historical—or rather, intelligently historicizing—he is constantly tempted to contrast the people and objects of the second half of the 20th century with their historical predecessors, making his thematic range remarkably broad. If he now exhibits mainly female figures, this is a deliberate narrowing and focusing of his thematic scope, a selection made for this occasion. Nevertheless, the artist is convinced that he can better express his views on time and social relationships through female rather than male figures; and we, the audience, certainly believe him, finding no reason to dispute it when faced with the women in his paintings.

Sedliský’s paintings do not need to be discovered; they have been here for a long time. His artistic work is well known, with a broad circle of enthusiasts and admirers. Nor do his works need lengthy explanations—their meanings are clear and straightforward. They express the spirit of the time in a way that is accessible to contemporary aesthetic sensibilities. For modern sensibilities and within the context of a painterly work that addresses the modern world, Sedliský consciously limits his scope, considering it part of his artistic program and even a fundamental duty to his viewers.

Dr. Václav Formánek

THE FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF MY WORK IS LOVE AND ADMIRATION FOR REALITY.

Both for nature, perceived by our senses, and for the relationships created by humans and understood through knowledge. We often read in the writings of some contemporary art theorists that this or that painter does not "describe" reality but "expresses" it, using the pejorative "describe" instead of the classical "depict." The difference between objective "depiction" and subjective "expression" is essentially the difference between classical and modern. These are two mutually exclusive approaches to reality. However, in every depiction, there is an element of expression, and in every expression, there is some depiction—because every "depictor" is also a subject, and every "expressor" is a part of objective reality.

This modern, subjective "expression" of reality is entirely distant and foreign to me. I cannot and do not want to identify with a subjective, strongly individualistic approach to reality. Reality, whether historical or contemporary, appears to me so interesting, captivating, exciting, and beautiful in itself that I feel no need to extract something from it, add to it, or, even less, evaluate it myself. Of course, I cannot capture all of reality, not even in its partial manifestations, but my personal standpoint, shaped by my capabilities, feels more like a limitation than an advantage.

Artistry, in my opinion, is necessarily contained within reality itself—both seen and understood—so much so that I would be completely satisfied if I could objectively depict this reality, or even describe or illustrate it. I see nothing wrong in being able to accompany the grandeur of reality with at least a somewhat adequate image or depiction.
Naturally, the reality around me and the contemporary world also include the views, attitudes, knowledge, and positions of people, especially those I know and who are close to me. I try to draw from their thinking, knowledge, and work as well. I have no desire—perhaps not even the ability—to see something in life and in everything around me that no one else sees and then reveal this "insight" to people. On the contrary, I want to paint things as I believe they are seen or could or should be seen by most people who share my perspective on the world.

I would like to see the new and rapidly changing world through the eyes of those closely connected to its transformations. Through my paintings, I wish to contribute to the collective efforts of people striving to merge humanism with the scientific and technological revolution, aiming for a new, victorious understanding and action.

I equally appreciate and feel close to the past and the present, the humanistic and the technical—everything, or almost everything—from Egypt and antiquity through the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Baroque, to the nineteenth century and the most modern technology of today. Whether it is cybernetic robots, space rockets, or controlled thermonuclear reactions, artistic or technical forms.

I find everything that allows looking at a certain era or topic from multiple perspectives and enables storytelling to be an interesting subject for an extensive cycle of paintings. The narrative quality, which modern art often rejects, is important to me, and I want my paintings to "tell stories." Therefore, unlike modern art, the subject matter is crucial and often essential to me. Many of my paintings exist because painting allows me—or even often compels me—to delve deeper into themes that interest me.

When I painted more than thirty portraits of painters I admire, I naturally familiarized myself with their works, methods, and approaches to reality much more thoroughly than if I had merely browsed through reproductions of their works.

It is possible that my love for reality is somewhat naive, that it lacks criticality and often leads to idealization, but that is probably due to my nature. Perhaps it is also a reaction to a significant part of modern art, which finds artistic value in ugliness, depression, convulsions, and the distortion of reality. Perhaps it is not such a great and unforgivable sin to prefer beauty over ugliness in both life and art.

If almost every historical theme seems inherently interesting and artistic to me, it also appears extraordinarily contemporary. After all, we see history today, thanks to extraordinary new scientific discoveries, more truthfully and comprehensively than ever before. Compare, for example, the scope and quality of information a Renaissance artist had about antiquity with our current possibilities of understanding the ancient world. Consider how French art discovered Africa, recall Baroque depictions of biblical themes or the historical paintings of the Romantics. These and other examples allow us to compare and see how an enormous amount of concrete historical knowledge today merges with a new assessment made possible by science and technology. Never before in history has the entire past of humanity been the subject of such contemporary interest.

For these reasons, I find ancient and more recent civilizations, eras, and events completely relevant and alive today. My views contrast with modern art, which programmatically sought to rid humanity and art of the "burden of old civilizations." The twentieth century completely turned away from the Greco-Roman tradition, where reality and rationality were its two fundamental pillars. For me, this tradition, along with the classical union of reason and sensibility, serves as the fundamental basis and standard by which I evaluate my personal experience.

Just as modern art denies the past, it also denies the possibility of knowing objective reality, focusing instead on irrationality, instincts, and, at best, human emotions.

Of course, when we speak of modern art, we must consider its hundred-year duration and the vast diversity of opinions and changes it has undergone. After all, the difference between Velázquez and Manet or Rembrandt and Gogh is incomparably smaller than that between Monet and Kandinsky or Matisse and Pollock. – In recent decades, modern art has programmatically distanced itself from reality.

However, I find the tangible world around us—the world of new things, new shapes, new knowledge—immensely fascinating and exciting "in itself." Through new ways of thinking, it is once again becoming comprehensible, despite its constant transformations and rapid development.
This comprehensibility of the world, along with the ability to change it, provides incredible possibilities for realistic depiction. Realism is the representation of the typical under typical circumstances, and the scientific and technological revolution both captures the typical and constantly changes typical conditions.

On one hand, reason, logic, and knowledge restore humanity to life and art, creating the conditions for realism, while on the other hand, constant movement transforms its possible forms. Nineteenth-century realism was based on philosophical materialism and the emerging natural sciences. It viewed reality objectively but as given and essentially unchangeable. Today, dialectical thinking and the enormous progress of science and technology completely alter static notions of reality. What new possibilities does this new dynamism offer for depicting reality!

It seems to me that today's world is beginning, on a higher level, to regain a unity that enables synthesis and opens the door to a new stylistic period.

Naturally, if I see the world as increasingly unified and comprehensible, I seek a way of working that would allow me, with essentially the same painterly means, to depict this entire world as I understand it. To paint everything that is paintable and that interests me—from a child's portrait to paintings with such abstract themes as cybernetics or genetic engineering. I seek forms that allow me to organically unite my two great loves—history and the present—as well as historical artistic forms and technology.

I would also like to integrate what I find valuable in modern art—especially the color and formal vocabulary of non-figurative art—with an objective, "classical" approach to reality. I would like to merge what I see in nature and life with what I know about people and things.

I admire Velázquez as much as Miró. Manet and Picasso are as contemporary to me as Formula 1 racers. I admire Homer as much as Einstein, ancient art as much as electronics. I want my paintings with historical themes to carry something contemporary and my paintings of modern technology to possess something classical.

I would be pleased if my paintings were accepted as an expression of love for objective reality and if they could, even slightly, contribute to the revolutionary goals of today—the fusion of a qualitatively new humanism with the most advanced science and technology.

Metarealism is realism that expands the classical approach to reality with the possibilities that science and technology offer for the study and depiction of humans and nature.

Humanist technocracy will bring reality and rationality back into art in a new renaissance, building on classical culture and creating new canons of truth and beauty.

Modern art gradually parted ways with reality, while postmodern art abandoned rationality.

Metarealism allows for the citation of artworks within the logical context of our perception and understanding of objective reality.
Metarealism restores reality and rationality to art, meaning a renaissance of portraiture. It enables the depiction of the civilization in which the portrayed individual lives, as well as their intellectual and emotional world.
Metarealism allows for the depiction of historical phenomena as well as the entire visible reality of today.

In contrast to postmodern art, Metarealism builds upon rational European classical culture and unites the three foundations of society shaped by the scientific and technological revolution: humanity, civilization, and nature.

ABOUT PAINTINGS OF WOMEN

All my life, I have painted images of women. Why has the theme of women been the central and lasting motif of my work? Primarily because a woman is the most beautiful being that exists in nature; she has always been the most attractive subject in painting and in art in general.

Nothing in the history of mankind has undergone such immense transformations, and yet, despite its constancy, has not manifested itself in such an incredible number of variations. What a great wealth of expressions is hidden in a single woman!

A woman embodies everything we encounter in our lives; she is the essence of life and its most beautiful ornament. If a man can be seen as a personification of rational civilization, then a woman is the personification of wise and omnipresent nature—a nature that we admire, perceive, and accept without ever fully understanding or influencing it.

I have always been convinced that in women and their portrayals, one can best capture the complexity of life, social relationships, contemporary thought and emotions, as well as both timeless and period-specific ideals of beauty. I am convinced that the immense qualitative transformation of human society, which is the emancipation of women, has fully manifested not only in the lives of modern women but also in their beauty.

Never in history have so many women cared so much about their appearance; never in history have there been so many beautiful and fascinating women as today. Never before has there been such a great fusion of spiritual and physical beauty, a new modern kalokagathia.

Today's woman is fully aware that her charm lies as much in the natural gifts of nature as in her spiritual self-awareness. She knows that her beauty fulfills a broader ideal of female beauty—one that today is not an abstract idea but a principle in which a woman freely shapes herself.

She understands that her beauty, the beauty of the sensual world, is directed not only toward the senses but also toward consciousness, which comprehends beauty. The beauty of today's woman is an expression of the spirit and the heart; it is classical in the sense that it balances individual randomness with general laws and order. Women today seek in themselves and in their appearance the inner essence of things—external and internal aspects merge into one. That is why the beauty of a woman is also truthful in itself—for in the rarity of life, it is precisely the inner radiance that makes the beauty of women dominant.

“Life is serious, art is bright,” says the poet Schiller—and women create their image as a work of art that speaks to the world.

Therefore, in portraying today's woman, one must free oneself from any external determinism, from everything unworthy and transient, from all morbidity, from today's cult of successful ugliness. One cannot accept archetypal primitiveness, deliberate deformation, or contemporary absurdity. One cannot accept any limitation of the fullness of nature, because it is precisely in the fusion of natural gifts and spiritual self-awareness—arising from the understanding of nature—that the essence of the beauty of today's women lies.

The beauty of today's woman is full of self-confidence; it is a beauty that combines the harmony of ancient moderation with the drama of the Baroque, the Renaissance's scholarship with the activity and pragmatism of the 1920s and 1930s.

Today's woman unites in a new, higher synthesis all that once seemed characteristic of different historical epochs, various nations, and different societies.

The beauty of today's women is magnificent, complex, and grand—it differs from all previous concepts of female beauty in history while simultaneously being their synthesis.

For forty years, I have painted, again and again, images of women I see in life around me, striving to capture their rich, complex, and wonderful world.

And I am happy that three generations of beautiful, wise, sensitive, and educated women have found in my paintings their new, modern ideal of beauty and have accepted my portrayal of their own absoluteness.

Prague, September 19, 1991

On Culture, Contemporary Art, and Opinion Dubbing

Last year’s major exhibitions in Venice, Kassel, Hanover, and Mannheim were essentially a global representative summary of the most acclaimed contemporary artistic tendencies. However, they provoked skepticism and often outright rejection among many prominent European art critics. It became evident that they brought nothing fundamentally new, that the epoch of modern art had definitively closed with abstraction, and that the postmodern era is concluding with a transition from the historicism of applied art, ending either in the emptiness of content or in content-driven journalism.

It has become clear that the level of civilization increasingly diverges from the level of culture and art, which, having abandoned reality and rationality, has entirely "dislocated itself from its hinges."

The scientific and technical revolution, in which reason is the decisive productive force and knowledge the most progressive capital, brings intelligence to the forefront. However, intelligence is increasingly divided into humanistic intellectuals, who live with words and from words, and technocratic intellectuals, who are tied to the development and management of vast industrial, financial, and commercial empires.

Intellectuals who have distanced themselves from reality and rationality—paradoxically the most influential in art and media today—verbally and substantially determine their form. When, after the collapse of ideologies, they had the opportunity to significantly influence development, they became preachers and commentators of this development. They overestimate their role and, as always, analyze their own problems, presenting their own weakness and disorientation as characteristic of society as a whole.

To document their superiority over "pragmatists," they seek out the superficial and dark aspects of civilization, even as they exploit and demand its advantages.

Whereas in the past, an artist who sought to "know themselves" would create a self-portrait, today they photograph (and exhibit) their genitals or feces in a jar or a bra. Under the pretense of breaking all taboos, nothing is too disgusting to be displayed as a work of art—ranging from feces in a jar or a bra, to hairy anuses in aquariums and sanitary pads, to used condoms and beer cans. According to this perspective, anything anyone creates is considered a work of art, and anyone can be an artist.

Of course, even in today's degraded postmodern era, many works by many authors are excellent and genuinely expand our perception and understanding. However, they are increasingly difficult to find amidst the flood of average and deeply subpar works, in the chaos of aggressive self-promotion by groups and individuals alike.

Yet, contemporary intellectuals form only a smaller and shrinking part of the broader intelligence. A significantly larger and more important segment is the rapidly growing new class of humanistic technocracy. This emerging class is only beginning to shape its philosophy, its culture, and its artistic taste. However, even now, it is clear that the pragmatism of technocrats will return reality and rationality to art—elements that modernism and postmodernism have expelled—thus laying the groundwork for a new renaissance. It is also undeniable that this new, historically emerging class, by combining reason and sensory perception, will unite the classical with the modern, portraying humanity in a new kalokagathia—a harmony of mental and physical beauty.

It is natural that the new humanistic technocracy will express its strength and self-confidence through art, that its new approach to reality will create new forms of realism—a new metarealism—as one of the representations of today’s complex world.

People in this country take pride in how well they can interpret foreign works, how informed they are about foreign intellectual trends, how effectively they can promote foreign work, and how skillfully they "dub" others’ opinions into their own language. This is most evident in the field of culture and art, where dependence on foreign models is presented as an advantage and is often even considered synonymous with quality.

In his poem about Bohemia, Viktor Dyk once wrote: "Your children will take thoughts from the tenth hand, And bring Europe already worn-out clothes to wear."

We are content with being seen as a province, and with a years-long delay, we construct our own self-important world—a world where an inferiority complex coexists with petty bourgeois self-overestimation. We pretend to be sovereigns among ourselves, yet we stand humbly before the wealthy world, cap in hand, ready to serve cheaply. The diligence with which we uncritically import "new foreign trends" deserves less admiration and more caution.

Certainly, we are good at many things and often better than those we compare ourselves to, but we are almost never the first—neither in our ideas nor in our opinions. We are the ones who expertly quote others but are only rarely quoted in the world.

In every era and every society, there are always people who refuse to settle for merely adopting and repeating ideas long achieved elsewhere—those who turn their dreams, thoughts, and work toward the future. And if they can unite, they might, despite our unfavorable conditions, at least in some areas, keep pace with the rapidly changing world—and perhaps, in some instances, even surpass it.

About Portraiture

To understand the position and significance of contemporary portraiture, we must at least partially return to the past, particularly to the nineteenth century. The nineteenth century was an extraordinarily important period for our European civilization, enriching it significantly by deepening the knowledge of human history while simultaneously opening the way to our present.

In the nineteenth century, an unprecedented number of inventions, the opening of new trade routes, and the industrialization of production created the impression that a golden age of prosperity for all was beginning. However, reality was different—machines extended working hours, urban crowding drastically worsened living conditions, and competition bred ruthless aggression.

Artists, sensitive observers of the world around them, became disillusioned with the development of civilization and gradually turned away—first from harmful aspects of reality and later from reality itself. Impressionism narrowed reality down to the visible, which evolved into Cubism’s approach to creative problems or Surrealism’s escape into dreams and imagination. This process culminated in abstraction, the definitive rejection of reality. Naturally, this also undermined reality as one of the two pillars of European classical tradition and, consequently, displaced portraiture, which cannot exist without sensory-perceived reality.

Modern and postmodern art further rejected the second pillar that had upheld art since antiquity—rationality. While the primary reason for rejecting reality stemmed from disillusionment with civilization's development, the principal reason for postmodernism’s rejection of rationality was disillusionment with the practical consequences of ideologies, whether nationalist or socialist. People placed immense hopes in these ideologies, but they ultimately contributed to the outbreak of two devastating world wars that caused immense suffering and death for millions. The post-war era of the late twentieth century was overshadowed by the threat of global catastrophe, and art sought to escape this reality by embracing irrationality.

Modern and especially postmodern art thus abandoned the effort to depict life, justify its manifestations, and explore its meaning, both in general and in detail. It rejected grand narratives, logic, order, ideas, reason, and the pursuit of truth—turning the twentieth century, as the philosopher Bergson put it, into a century of unconsciousness.

Artists reverted to the starting point of societal development and artificially recreated a situation akin to primitivism and prehistory, when our ancestors lived in a world they neither understood nor controlled—a world that was an absolute mystery to them.

Today’s artists also create in a world that, according to art theorists, they do not comprehend and often do not wish to understand. In any case, modern affluent society does not demand understanding from them; instead, it allows them to entertain themselves and others, prioritizing play over thought. The artist is no longer a messenger of faith, a philosopher, or an engineer of anything—he has become an entertainer. Art has turned into a collection of casual games, shifting, metaphorically speaking, from stone theaters to circus arenas. Popularity has replaced social relevance. The contemporary artist has been freed from all constraints and taboos, enjoying absolute freedom—except that he is a slave to the market, which shapes him into the role of a showman and businessman.

In contemporary art, all values and dimensions are mixed together—high and low, traditional and new, primitive and sublime, serious and banal—though not in equal measure. We can say that what art pursued throughout history—truth and beauty—has been pushed out of art itself, while what was once marginal or external to art—ugliness, repulsiveness, and dilettantism—has been drawn into its center.

Polarity is emphasized, yet realism is not considered part of this polarity. This means that portraiture, inherently connected to classical tradition, stands apart from and often in opposition to most contemporary artistic tendencies.

Today’s question is: Can portraiture return to art after being so brutally expelled throughout the twentieth century? The answer must again be sought in social developments and their new direction. Due to the scientific and technological revolution, reason has become the decisive force, while education and information have become the most progressive forms of capital. This reintroduces rationality and reality into art, creating conditions for a new Renaissance. Portraiture is now opening the path to this Renaissance.

Thus, portraiture is not something rendered obsolete by modern times; on the contrary, it is something that the new era is bringing back. Portraiture has the unique ability to quickly reconnect with Europe’s rich cultural tradition, to integrate the past and present, and to combine objective and subjective elements into a new quality.

Portraiture, with its emphasis on form and order, can counteract today’s fragmented, chaotic visual culture. Its communicative power can bridge the growing gap between artists and their audience. Equally important, its technical and craftsmanship demands can serve as a barrier against the flood of amateurism and artistic incompetence.

Portraiture, due to its complexity, has always been the pinnacle of artistic endeavor. It has historically been one of the most respected disciplines, and it is quite possible that in the coming Renaissance, it will regain its prominent and dignified place. Naturally, the growing isolation of portraiture and the interruption of its natural evolution have consequences—only a handful of artists possess the technical skills to master it, only a few can overcome prevailing conventions and persistent biases. Only a few can compete with photography, and only a select few can balance their own psyche and artistic personality with that of the subject being portrayed. In portraiture, an artist cannot unleash unchecked imagination, rely solely on intuition, or elevate himself above his subject beyond the viewer’s scrutiny.

One of the extraordinary challenges of portraiture is that it excludes the appeal of randomness. A mere brushstroke can alter the subject’s expression; a tiny shift in a drawing’s proportions or a subtle change in shading can result in an entirely different face.

It is precisely this constant attention, self-discipline in artistic sensitivity, and control over the painter’s energy and expression—while simultaneously maintaining the subject’s individuality—that make portraiture such a demanding and rigorous artistic discipline.

Portraiture cannot be classified as just another form of artistic play. It has always belonged and will always belong to the category of true art. This is why so few painters, even among professionals, are capable of painting portraits.