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Portraits are works of art that record the likenesses of humans or animals that are alive or have been alive. The word portraiture is used to describe this category of art.

The purpose of a portrait is to memorialize an image of someone for the future. It can be done with painting, photography, sculpture or almost any other medium.

Some portraiture is also created by artists purely for the sake of creating art, rather than working on commission. The human body and face are fascinating subjects that many artists like to study in their personal work.

Many artists also choose to do a "self-portrait." It is a work of art depicting the artist created by their own hand. These are typically made from a reference photo or by looking in a mirror. Self-portraits can give you a good sense of how an artist views themselves and, quite often, it is rather introspective. Some artists will regularly create self-portraits, some just one in their lifetime, and others will not produce any.

One could speculate that the majority of portraits are created while the subject is still alive. It may be a single person or a group, such as a family.

Portrait paintings go beyond simple documentation, it is the artist's interpretation of the subject. Portraits can be realistic, abstract, or representational. 

Thanks to photography,we can easily capture records of what people look like throughout their life. This was not possible prior to the invention of the medium in the mid-1800s, so people relied on painters to create their portrait

 Portraiture can come in any size. When a painting was the only way to capture a person's likeness, many well-to-do families chose to memorialize people in "portrait miniatures." These paintings were often done in enamel, gouache, or watercolor on animal skin, ivory, velum, or a similar support. The details of these tiny portraits—often just a couple of inches—are amazing and created by extremely talented artists.

Portraits can also be very large. We often think of paintings of royalty and world leaders hanging in enormous halls. The canvas itself can, at times, be larger than the person was in real life.

The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.