I work with artists in my profession, many of them do painted portrait commissions as well as other works. Typically, the title of a painting is italicized, right? - or sometimes put in quotes. However, I contend that when a painting is a portrait commission and the subject's name is given as part of the caption that it should not be italicized because it is not a title, but the person's name. The exception might be if one said Portrait of Jane Doe, then it becomes a title - just my thoughts. Does anyone know of an official rule on this?
If the painting is a portrait, then the name of that person (with or without "Portrait of...") is the title and should be italicised. It's the convention. The only exception might be if the portrait had another title, but even then you would probably add "(Portrait of . . . )" in italics with it.
Thanks for your thoughts. After quite a bit of searching around to try and find something perhaps authoratative, I ended up at the London National Portrait Gallery. In the examples I checked there, they do not use italics.
One gallery is hardly authoritative...but really, if its for a caption on a gallery wall, it doesn't really matter either way (you'd be better off focusing on the actual text, most galleries do an awful job of captioning their paintings). But in publications, the convention still stands; you should italicise painting titles.
That's why I wrote "perhaps authoritative." Though it is the National Portrait Gallery of London. I guess if I had a painting of myself (and I do), I would not consider my name to be the title of the painting - it is the name of the subject.
there's a difference between the titles shown on the wall in a gallery/museum and what is done when titles are included in a written work... you two seem to be discussing two different situations... so... cd... are you asking how the title should be typed on the card accompanying the hung painting?... or how titles of paintings are properly typed in an article, a story, or a book?...
But in lieu of a title given by the artist, the subject always acts as the title, whether it's a still life, landscape or portrait. And the title, in publication, is always italicised. You can't leave a work untitled if you intend to sell it or have it exhibited or featured in a publication, it needs to identified, and if you don't specify a particular title, they will use the subject by default, regardless of whether or not you consider it the title of the work. If you're not comfortable with your name as a title, come up with something else, but unless you do, your name (usually with "Portrait of. . .") must be considered the title of the work.
I'm talking about on a web site which is displaying examples of the artist's portrait commissions. So, let's say an artist painted Bill Clinton (one of my artist clients did), in featuring President Clinton's portrait on the artist's site, I would not be inclined to put Clinton's name in italics. That just seems strange to me. It's not a title, it's his name. No?
Hmmm, I'm looking at the web sites of 3 of today's top portrait painters. None use italics for the subjects' names. Maybe this is some kind of "portrait world standard" that has developed outside nomal writing rules? Did you know in the world of painting, height is standardly expressed before width? And, I'm not 100% on this, but I think I heard it's just the opposite in photography.
why don't you go to a fine arts site and ask these questions?... or to one of the major museum sites?
