E X T E N S I O N PORTRAIT PAINTING Strangely enough, in our modern world of analog selfies and Instagram, more people than ever are actually painting portraits, many of them returning to traditional techniques to portray contemporary faces. In The Oval Portrait, Poe says that the portrait on the wall was in the style of Sully . Thomas Sully was one of the most successful portrait painters in America in the 19th century. He emigrated from England with his family when he was 10 and learned to paint with his brother-in-law, a French miniaturist1 painter. He was especially well-known for his rather exaggerated, elegant and idealized portraits of fashionable women. His technique was flawless2, refined and decorative and his sitters were often in rather self-conscious positions, which meant that his portraits were totally aesthetic, beauty in Art, giving no insight3 into the character of the person portrayed. This is why perhaps Poe chose to give the reader the idea of such a portrait: extraordinary beauty captured on canvas, focusing only on the Art form, cancelling out the woman herself. It is an instrument to put across his ideas on Art. Portraits have been around since the ancient Egyptians. Their history has continued since then, with the court painters such as Diego Velasquez or Hans Holbein the Younger and their portraits of kings and queens, to the Renaissance artists such as Jan Vermeer or Georges de La Tour, who began to paint ordinary people leading quiet lives. In those days, artists were limited to a few very skilled individuals, but by the 19th century, 1. miniaturist: a person who paints very small portraits. 2. flawless: perfect, with no fault. Thomas Sully J. Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring, c. 1665 3. insight: clear perception and understanding. 17