Profile Portraits
Myles-Lea's exquisite Profile Portraits are painted with Kolinsky sable brushes on canvas and are reminiscent of works created in Renaissance Europe.
 |
Evelyn Lauder. Senior Corporate Vice President.
The Estée Lauder Companies Inc.
Oil on canvas, 14" x 14". NYC, 2004
|
 |
| Stephen Little, Web Editor, The Royal Academy of Arts & author of 'ISMs - Understanding Art' ISBN: 0713670118. London, 2004 |
 |
| Brian Avon - Director of Global Visual Merchandising - Aveda Oil on canvas, 14" x 14". NYC, 2004 |
Originally produced as portable 'keepsakes', portrait miniatures were incredibly popular amongst Royalty and the aristocracy in the centuries before photography. Myles-Lea's delicate portraits, however, are painted almost life-size and incorporate texts and symbols associated with the sitter. These personal and sometimes esoteric features are fresh twists that he brings to the portrait genre.
Myles-Lea is a UK 'Living National
Treasure' and
has long been in demand as a painter of portraits of grand houses and gardens.
His work has been exhibited at Sotheby's in London and
his paintings hang in some of Europe 's greatest collections. His pictures
are also featured in many publications, including those on the history of
art and gardening by Yale University Press and Dorling Kindersley.
In 1995, Myles-Lea painted the, by now, well known image of 'The Laskett', a large formal garden created by the acclaimed writer, historian and garden designer Sir Roy Strong. Strong was the director of the 'National Portrait Gallery' and the 'V&A' Museum in London, and his books upon art of the Renaissance portrait are seminal texts.
HISTORY OF THE PROFILE PORTRAIT
Portraits have taken many forms through the centuries. The Egyptians made sculptured monuments that showed idealized portraits of their monarchs, which were intended to grant them immortality.
The profile portrait in both painting and low-relief sculpture became a major art form in fifteenth-century Florence. The genre was inspired by the depiction of heads on the coins and gems of Classical Antiquity, adapted with the high fashions of the time and stylized to appeal to the taste of the period. The portraits were often produced to record a likeness of the sitter, to be passed on to a potential suitor, or kept for commemorative purposes.
The profile view commonly used for early Renaissance painted portraits conforms to the format of portrait medals, which Pisanello introduced in the 1430s. His 'Cecilia Gonzaga', representing the daughter of the duke of Mantua, is the first known Renaissance medal to portray a woman. Reflecting the humanist fascination with the classical past, medals emulated ancient Roman coins depicting the Caesars in strict profile.
 |
| [Pisanello's coin] |
As the profile view was also used for images of female saints, it was especially suitable for portraits of young brides, who were expected to bring honor to their husbands' families through virtuous behavior. The upright posture and the averted gaze dictated by the profile format reinforced an impression of moral rectitude - a quality particularly valued during the Renaissance.
Master painters such as Baldovinetti, Ghirlandaio, Pollaiuolo, Piero della Francesca excelled at the profile view in 15th century Florence.
 |
 |
 |
 |
Portraits | |
| 1. Baldovinetti | 2. Ghirlandaio |
| 3. Pollaiuolo | 4. Piero della Francesco |
Hans Holbein, the greatest Renaissance artist to work in Britain, was a pioneer of the miniature portrait at the court of Henry VIII. Nicholas Hilliard took the miniature and romanticized and his, pupil Isaac Oliver continued this courtly aesthetic.
 |
 |
 |
 |
Miniatures | |
| 1. Holbein's portrait of an unknown lady | 2. Holbein's Portrait of Henry Brandon |
| 3. Hilliard's portrait of Elizabeth I | 4. Hilliard's portrait of an unknown man |
Portraiture was to become one of English art's most enduring achievements. Jonathan Myles-Lea continues this tradition with his luminous and distinctive paintings.
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Myles-Lea's portraits are painted on fine Belgian linen using paints manufactured by 'Old Holland', a company established in 1664 which supplied Dutch Masters such as Van Gogh, Vermeer and Van Rysdael. Artists and restorers prefer their pigments today for their proven quality and permanence of color.
New York City , March 2004