After deciding on the subject for Assignment five I started researching artists whose work included portraits with multiple faces, and those most relevant to my idea were:
The Allegory of Prudence, 1560, by Titian, which shows three human heads, a middle-aged bearded man in the centre, a young man in profile on the right, and an old man in profile on the left. Beneath are shown the head of a lion in the centre, a dog in profile on the right and a wolf in profile on the left.
Done in oil on canvas, 75.5 x 68.4 cm, the colour palette is brown and red, with very strong light and shadow, and the energy of the painting is very striking despite the dull palette primarily because of the contrast between the apparent calm of the human faces and the evident ferocity of the animals.
The left head resembles Titian himself in old age; the bearded central man is thought to represent his son Orazio, and the youth may depict his cousin and heir, Marco Vecellio (Nationalgallery.org.uk)
The painting is full of symbolism; the three human heads allude to youth, maturity and old age, and Titian wants to depict the association between the human faces and the animals below; old age with the wolf, maturity with the lion and youth with the dog. Since the fifth century the three-headed creature has been regarded as an embodiment of time, with the voracious wolf representing the past which devours the memory of all things, the vigorous lion representing the present and the dog representing the future bounding forward.
Apart from the three ages concept, the painting also expressed the second, wider concept of time itself, as having a past represented by the old man looking back, a present with the man looking directly at the viewer, and a future represented by the youth looking forward. (artinsociety.com)
Reference
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/titian-an-allegory-of-prudencehttp://www.artinsociety.com/titian-prudence-and-the-three-headed-beast.html
Three-headed portrait of Alan Cumming, 2014 by Christian Hook
This painting is a portrait of Scottish actor Alan Cumming, showing three heads in a realistic style.
The head on the left is turned almost 1/8 to the left, but looks at the viewer with a somewhat inquisitive expression, and part of this face is behind the head in the centre which looks straight at the viewer, is tilted slightly to the left, and has a more vulnerable, sad expression. The head on the right faces to the right in profile in a somewhat theatrical pose, and there are several semi-transparent marks and drips which smooth the transition from one face to the other pulling the painting together.
The painting is done in water-mixable oil on canvas in a landscape format, and I haven’t been able to find its exact dimensions. Judging however from the pictures of the exhibition I think it is probably around 2 metres wide and 800 centimetres high.
The colours are muted, light greyish-blues, with some warm soft colours on the faces in the left and centre, and a cool Paynes grey on the face on the right.
There is strong energy and drama in the painting derived from the poses and the colour palette, with the random marks giving an additional sense of drama.
Christian Hook did this painting of Alan Cumming in the 2014 Sky Art Portrait Artist of the Year competition – which he won - and I’ve had it in my mind ever since. I like it very much, and hugely admire the work of Christian Hook because of his ability to combine realism and a contemporary twist in all his portraits, which was my main inspiration for assignment five.