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Unique original portrait paintings and drawings for sale by independent artists in various mediums and styles.
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Buy portrait art via Art2Arts

No art collection would be truly complete without a portrait, so take a few moments to browse some of our latest portrait paintings for sale and marvel at the talents of artists from around the world all bought together in our continually updated digital gallery. 

There are many reasons why art fans are so enthralled by portrait paintings. They are a timeless genre that has held its popularity right up until the present day. In fact, our love affair with portrait paintings shows no sign of wavering with many people choosing to buy portrait paintings to add to their growing artwork collection or to make a real style statement in their homes. 

With many galleries across the world solely dedicated to displaying famous portraits, these staples of art history offer up representations of people from across the ages and reveal many interesting things about the subject, including how the artist has chosen to represent them on canvas. 

From hidden clues in objects and backgrounds to clothing and body language, portrait paintings offer so much more than a representation of a person, so take a moment to browse our current collection of portrait paintings for sale and enjoy making up your own mind about what the artist is trying to convey in each piece. 

Browse our collection of unique portrait paintings for sale here and connect with emerging new artists who are steadily building up a reputation in the art world and our team of expert artwork couriers will collect your unique piece and have it delivered to an address of your choosing in perfect, ready to hang condition. 


Technique of creating portrait paintings

Portrait paintings can be a very difficult discipline to master, in part due to the skill required to replicate the human presence on paper. The best portraits don’t just capture the physical aesthetic of the subject, they also give the viewer a sense of character, personality, time and place.

In portraiture, a wide variety of mediums are often used from oil and acrylic to pencil or charcoal. Portraiture painting techniques date back thousands of years, due to their early use as official family records or historic records of nobility such as kings, queens and other rulers, meaning there are many examples of different mediums in use through the ages.

Masters such as Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci are both examples of artists who mastered the technique of portraiture. Da Vinci was known for embracing Sfumato technique in his work, which softens the colour. Along with the clever use of light and dark (Chiaroscuro), giving a realness to his subjects. The most famous example of this is the Mona Lisa, which has an almost ethereal quality thanks to the careful, incredibly delicate transitions of colour which give a supremely natural appearance that was truly revolutionary in its day.

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