https://www.posetteforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=1292&p=18896#p18896
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Visitor
Saturday, 19 February 2005, 01:52 AM


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From my understanding, graphical and sculpture portraits has two definitions.  One of them is in accord with your definiton, being an image of the face and only the beginning of the sholders.  The other definition overlaps that of a bust.  If the artwork depicts an idealized version of the subject, it is a bust, on other hand  if the artwork depicts a realistic image of the subject it is a portrait, also sometimes called a "bust portrait."  A portrait of this kind normally show the head and down to the upper abdomen.  Although in practice, I have seen portraits painted by the masters of the past few centuries that are titled as portraits that go as low as the upper to mid waist area.  Also the subject should be depicted as posing for the artwork, if the subject is doing something else, then it is not a portrait.

The pictures that I posted, [i]Portrait of Betty[/i] and [i]Portrait of Betty, The Second Sitting[/i] are right up against the border but have not yet crossed the line.  That is why I framed those two pictures as I did, so they could still be titled as portraits.

Pangor