It is through the social innovations of the précieuses - such as La Grande Mademoiselle who, influenced by the portrait-laden works of Madeleine de Scudéry, gathered around her (as a salonnière or ‘salon hostess’) men of letters - that the portrait was transformed into a ‘diversion of society’.
The literary portrait held to the essential aesthetic rules of the pictorial mode - that is, it had to describe the individual (model) faithfully in order to distinguish it as a type apart.
This narrative representation had the function of highlighting fixed and timeless physical and mental features, as one sees in the works of Molière or in the Caractères by Jean de La Bruyère.
In Denis Diderot, it is precisely the pictorial portrait that is the occasion of a narrative self-portrait effected in the form of an artistic critique of the paintings and statues which were made of him.
We see it from the front; his head is bare; his grey tufts, with his preciousness, gives him the appearance of an old coquette who is still loveable; the position of a secretary of state and not a philosopher.
The philosopher blamed the painter's wife for having prevented him from being himself: “It is this madwoman, madame Van Loo, who had come to gossip with him while he was being painted, who gave him that air, and who spoiled everything.” Diderot took to imagining what his portrait would have been like: If she had taken to her harpsichord and improvised, or sung Non ha ragione, ingrate, Un core abbandonato or some other piece of the same genre, the sensitive philosopher would have taken an altogether different character; and the portrait would have been effective.
I had a large forehead, very lively eyes, broad features, a head quite like an ancient orator, a bonhomie that touched very closely the stupidity and rustic character of former times.
I have a mask that deceives the artist; either there is too much melted together or the impressions of my soul succeed each other very quickly and paint themselves all over my face: the eye of the painter does not find me the same from one moment to the other; his task becomes much more difficult than he had believed it to be.
She has felt everything, judged everything, tested everything, chosen everything, rejected everything; she is, she says, a singular difficulty in company, and yet all day long she jabbers with our little ladies like a magpie.
She looks crazy while eating; she breaks up a chicken in the dish where it is served, then she puts it in another, has brought broth to put on it, just like the one she makes, and then she takes a wing, then the body, of which she only eats half, and then she does not want us to turn the calf to cut a bone, lest we soften the skin; she cuts a bone with all possible pain, she gnaws half of it, then returns to her hen; it lasts two hours.
Marie Du Deffand completes this portrait of an eccentric by linking her to her interlocutor: “I am sorry that you have in common with her the impossibility of staying a minute at rest.” After which she concludes, in accordance with the philosophy of resignation and disinterest she defends, the temporary nature of that which she will have to endure on this “holiday meeting”: Finally - do you want me to tell you?
As an evolution of the portrait in twenty-first century literature, the writer Adrián Dozetas promoted the execution of the live portraying in the form of a participatory performance.
The Written Portraits Performance format has included other disciplines such as dance, painting and music, inviting different artists to portray live.