The exhibition FOUR CENTURIES OF PORTRAIT opens a journey through time, which gives the opportunity to meet personalities from other epochs, representative types (of character, ethnicity, profession, social class, etc.), perfectly anonymous characters or eccentric and/or exotic models, in a selection of works from the collections of the Brukenthal National Museum, covering about four centuries (end of the 16th century - beginning of the 20th century).
The exhibited portraits are true "windows" to the history of other times, seen through individual "cases", mediated by the artist's talent, empathy and power of physiognomic analysis and research, and brought back to the viewer's memory by the thorough work of the restorer and the art historian's research. Highlighting general features, common to the rest of humanity, but also individual elements, related to the character's physiognomy and his social status, the portrait reveals how the sitter is so different from any other character, even from himself, in a certain moment of his life. The portrait represents, after all, a compromise between the expectations of the model and the skill of the artist (painter, draftsman, sculptor) who, through his capacity for psychological introspection, can reach beyond the technical aspects, the simple reproduction of a physiognomy.
On the center of the exhibition there are portraits of monarchs, famous military commanders, prelates, vengeful outlaws or blasé bourgeois, beautiful ladies dressed up in garments specific for their status, stern faces, melancholic, meditative figures or expressions of deep feelings, in a wide palette of stylistic approaches, from the Renaissance portrait to the naturalistic one.
Among the artists present in the exhibition are: Antiveduto Grammatica, Daniël Mijtens cel Bătrân, Jacques Des Rousseaux, Philipp Ferdinand de Hamilton, Johann Gottfried Auerbach, Mișu Popp, Anton Einsle, Karl Pavlovich Bryullov, Jules Pascin, Sava Albescu, Ion Georgescu, Maria Drăgan Cabadaieff, Hans Mauer, Ernst Richard Boege etc