Why Is No One Smiling in Classic Portraits and Photographs?
Learn why smiling was so uncommon in paintings and early photographs
"Smile!" We listen to this phrase practically every time we pose for a photograph. Nowadays, smiles are almost a requirement in photos and selfies, a reflex action: when we see a camera pointing at us or somebody asks to take our picture, our first instinct is to smile.
But that has not always been the case. For most of recorded history, smiles have not been prevalent. Smiles are rarely present in paintings or old photographs. Why?
A matter of vanity?
One of the hypotheses that could explain this enigmatic phenomenon is the vanity of the subjects portrayed. Due to the lack of personal hygiene in past centuries, teeth condition left much to be desired. Subjects would keep their lips firmly closed when posing for posterity to avoid showing their teeth.
But that is not the truth, for a simple reason: bad teeth were so widespread that they did not inspire shame in the subjects or their painters.
The energy of smiles
Nowadays, capturing a selfie or a photograph takes only an instant. However, think of what happens when the person taking the photo takes too long to compose or find the shutter release? The result is that our natural smile becomes forced and uncomfortable in a matter of seconds.
Imagine, then, what it would be like to have to smile for hours. Posing before a painter involved a lot of patience and could make it impossible to maintain a sincere smile since it is a quick reaction that comes as fast as it leaves.
A radical act
Although the time and effort required to pose with a smile is a strong reason not to include it in a picture, there are other reasons, more social than practical, that also justify forgoing it. Due to their scarcity, smiles in art began to be considered radical and unseemly. If they appeared, they quickly became the focus of attention of the whole painting. A portrait was the complete representation of a person: their life, status, and triumphs could not be reduced to a smile.
The Renaissance painter Antonello da Messina was one of the few well-known artists who dared to portray his subjects with a smile. His Portrait of a Young Man from 1470 is much earlier than Da Vinci's Mona Lisa (1503–19), although the latter was the one that went down in history because of the discreet and enigmatic smile.
In 18th century Europe, it was commonly accepted among the aristocracy that smiling while showing teeth was a vulgar expression and characteristic of the lower classes, drunks, and comedians. Only Dutch artists, such as Jan Steen, Franz Hals, or Judith Leyster, were determined to capture broad and free smiles due to their interest in naturalism and the popular classes' everyday life.
Outside the Netherlands, painters who dared painting a smile sought, on many occasions, the scandal. Caravaggio's Amor Vincit Omnia, painted in 1602, wanted to provoke, and his smile stands out as one of the most radical images of the painting.
But what about photography?
The first photographs shared the seriousness of pictorial portraits because of the same reasons. The exposure times to take a photo were much longer than they are now, although not so long as not to afford a smile.
The influence of art and the bad reputation of broad smiles in society made people continue the pictorial tradition of keeping your lips closed.
There is another factor that photography shares with painting: early photos, due to their scarcity, were extremely valuable for the subjects. They carried their image for posterity.
Open your mobile gallery: how many pictures of yourself do you have at your disposal? How many have you deleted because you didn't look good? I'm sure you still have a lot to choose from. Nowadays, we don't have to worry about being defined by a single image, but it did in the past. Mark Twain, in a letter to the Sacramento Daily Union, said:
"A photograph is a very important document, and there is nothing more damning for posterity than a silly smile captured forever."
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