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Why do so few people smile at works of art?

2020-06-16T13:17:09.083Z


Smiles have not always had the same consideration throughout history.Although we associate smiles with naturalness and friendliness, art history has not always shared this vision. It is enough to get lost among the galleries of some museum to realize that among the portrayed characters the broad smiles are conspicuous by their absence. No matter the date, the style or the origin, the majority of those portrayed adopt a serene and sober face, almost distant. For wha...


Although we associate smiles with naturalness and friendliness, art history has not always shared this vision. It is enough to get lost among the galleries of some museum to realize that among the portrayed characters the broad smiles are conspicuous by their absence. No matter the date, the style or the origin, the majority of those portrayed adopt a serene and sober face, almost distant. For what reasons do we hardly find smiles in museums?

Some theories

Several critics have analyzed this situation and have found explanations for all tastes. For example, keep in mind that posing for an oil portrait takes hours, or even days, in several grueling sessions. Maintaining a smile, therefore, is practically impossible, since the spontaneity that usually accompanies this gesture makes it very difficult to pretend. And, as the artist and writer Nicholas Jeeves points out in his article The Serious and the Smirk: The Smile in Portraiture , a smile looks a lot like a blush, in that it is an impossible reaction to maintain over time.

On the other hand, the cultural consideration of smiles has been changing throughout history. In the seventeenth century, for example, the aristocrats, historical patrons of art, related the broad smiles and those who showed their teeth with the lower social classes, the jesters, the actors and the drunkards, like those immortalized by Velázquez in his Triumph of Bacchus . The portraits that showed wide smiles did not correspond, therefore, with the solemnity pursued by most of the personalities who could afford such a work.

The triumph of Bacchus, by Velázquez, 1628 -1629, in the Prado Museum

The interest of Dutch Baroque artists to immortalize everyday life also often led them to choose characters from the lowest spheres of society as protagonists. In these works laughter almost seems to be a common factor, as can be seen, for example, in Gerrit van Honthorst's The Prodigal Son . Although in this case it was not only limited to the lower classes: even Rembrandt himself resorted to laughter in some of his self-portraits, which can be considered predecessors of our selfies.

The Prodigal Son, by Gerrit van Honthorst, 1623, at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.

Some historians, such as Colin Jones, find the explanation for this rejection in the lack of efficient oral hygiene until the eighteenth century, which made showing the dentures was not very decent. With improvements in this area, teaching teeth became a new tool for expressing sensitivity. Thus, for Jones, the Self - portrait of Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun with her daughter, from 1786, is extremely revolutionary: because she is one of the first to let out (albeit very lightly) a smile.

Self-portrait of Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun with her daughter, 1786, at the Louvre Museum, in Paris

Throughout history it is possible to find some exceptions, although with subtle and ambiguous smiles. Antonello da Messina, painter of the Italian Renaissance, went down to posterity for immortalizing many of his portraits with a half smile, supposedly as a reflection of his feelings and his inner life. Without going any further, his Portrait of an Unknown Sailor has long been considered the most enigmatic smile in art, until it was superseded by La Gioconda .

Portrait of Unknown Sailor, by Antonello da Messina, 1465-1470, in the Mandralisca Museum, Cefalù, Italy

Indeed, La Gioconda , which Leonardo da Vinci painted at the beginning of the 16th century, began to attract more and more attention during the 19th century, until it ended up becoming the most striking (albeit also slight) smile in art. Why does the protagonist of the portrait appear smiling? The answer is an enigma, like almost everything that surrounds this work. Even over the years, new theories have continued to emerge around it. In 2018, a scientist went so far as to say that a thyroid condition forced him to maintain that expression, although many other scholars also do not finish seeing it clearly.

La Gioconda, by Leonardo da Vinci, 1503-1516, in the Louvre Museum

In the 20th century, smiles became somewhat more common in art. Improvements in photography and the appearance of cinema encouraged its use as a way to reveal the inner emotions of those portrayed, which resulted in some artists launching to explore their expressive potential. Abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning, for example, used the smile to represent his Woman I , the first in his series of women in which he rejects the traditional female figure of Venus and immortalizes an almost demonic figure, highly influenced by goddesses paleolithic. The smile serves to enhance your fierceness.

Woman I by Willem de Kooning, 1950–52, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York

Perhaps the most outstanding example of an artist with a constant use of the smile throughout his production is that of Yue Mijun, a Chinese artist framed within the Chinese Cynic Realism, who constantly portrays himself with especially exaggerated, almost maniacal smiles. Influenced by the history of oriental art in her portrayal of the Buddha and advertising, what hides her laughter is, in fact, a profound political and social criticism of the country in which she lives.

Two men contemplate the work 'Blue Sky and White Clouds' by Chinese artist Yue Minjun during the 2014 Art Paris Art Fair. FRANCOIS GUILLOT / AFP (Getty Images)

The seriousness in the first photographs

The introduction of photography also meant a huge leap in the reproduction of smiles. Although this did not happen from the beginning, since the old photographs convey an enormous solemnity and seriousness. Some have wanted to find the explanation in the technological limitations, which required long exposure times to capture the snapshots. But in reality, even when the cameras improved by reducing these times, the absence remained.

The real reason has more to do with the fact that the first photographs drank directly from the tradition of the pictorial portrait, so its references were rather serious. In addition, the people who could afford to pose before a photographer, rather than want to save a specific moment, sought to immortalize their own image, a solemn and timeless image that has nothing to do with the fleetingness of laughter. Going to posterity with a ridiculous or mocking gesture was a common fear.

There are exceptions, just as in pictorial portraits. For example, this photograph entitled Eating rice, China , which belongs to the expedition of the historian Berthold Laufer to the eastern country, in which the protagonist smiles without hesitation. Taken in 1904, what surely makes the difference with respect to his contemporaries is his objective: being Laufer a historian and anthropologist of expedition abroad, surely he wanted to capture the essence and cultural differences of the country in which he was. Even the differences themselves may be the real reason why the person portrayed has no qualms about showing the greatest of smiles.

With the progressive democratization of photography and the growth of advertising, images of smiling people in mass communication began to multiply: smiles, as a sign of happiness, became an advertising hook.

Advertisement for Myers's rum brand, published in the British magazine Country Life in 1951. Geography Photos / Universal Images Group (Getty Images)

In recent years, social media seems to have taken this association even further. Now we share our photos without rest and we smile endlessly, as we have turned the smile into a new way of socializing and showing others our happiness and self-confidence. Although as our ancestors seemed to know, happiness is not always accompanied by a smile.

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Source: elparis

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