Sage and wise people are harder to distinguish visually, without using the cliché of the white-haired and bearded figure more commonly seen as Father Time. To the Romans, the personification of Wisdom was the goddess Minerva or Athena, whose complex background proved a challenge for painters.

Hendrik Goltzius shows a classical and fairly complete set of her attributes: the owl, her distinctive helmet here decorated with olive leaves, a spear, books, a writing quill, and great beauty.

Athena may go back to an even earlier Mycenean goddess. In archaic images, she’s often seen with an owl perched on her hand, and there is a suggestion that she may have originally been a bird goddess, nearly two thousand years BCE. Whatever the origins, there’s no doubt that Athena then Minerva were goddesses of wisdom, learning, crafts, and skill, and that they were strongly associated with owls, who became proxies for wisdom and knowledge. Minerva of the Romans also had Etruscan influences that determined her name in the goddess of war Menrva, with origins from an Italic moon goddess of similar name, hence her helmet and spear.

Solon was a key figure in the development of classical Greek civilisation, most significantly for laying down the tables of law for Athens, and best known for his legendary involvement with Croesus, the fabulously rich king whose name endures in English and other languages in the phrase as rich as Croesus.

Gaspar van den Hoecke’s Croesus Showing his Treasures to Solon is one of several similar paintings made in about 1635, presumably from a common source; others attributed to Cornelis de Vos and Frans Francken II survive. Here Croesus at the right is showing the bald and bearded Solon one of his treasure chambers. Troops in the background may refer to Croesus’ imminent fate at the hands of Cyrus and his Persian forces.

Accounts of wisdom in the Old Testament are generally focussed on the judgement skills of King Solomon, as displayed when he was called to settle a dispute between two women claiming to be the mother of one baby. Solomon commanded that the infant should be cleaved in two by a sword, leading to the real mother relinquishing her claim to the child, to ensure its survival.

Nicolas Poussin’s famous painting of The Judgement of Solomon from 1649 is timed slightly before the sword is raised, and depicts the body language clearly. Solomon’s hands indicate his role as the arbiter, in showing a fair balance between the two sides. The true mother, on the left, holds her left hand up to tell the soldier to stop and spare the infant. Her right hand is extended towards the false mother, indicating that she has asked for the baby to go to her rather than die. The false mother points accusingly at the child, her expression full of hatred. Hands are also raised in the group at the right, suggesting reactions to Solomon’s judgement. Without knowing the story well, though, there are no visual cues to suggest this young king is exceptionally wise.

This panel attributed to Giorgione and dated around 1505 mirrors the composition of his Trial of Moses (c 1496-9), to which it might have been a pendant. Solomon is shown in advanced age, thus inherently wise, commanding a courtier who has raised his short sword ready. The two women straddle the midline of the panel, their body language not clear enough to indicate who is the true mother.

More problematic still are visual accounts of the adoration of the Magi, three ‘wise men’ who are drawn by their observations of a comet to pay homage to the infant Jesus. Most take the easy option of depicting them as three kings, and only a few show them as pioneering astronomers.

Giotto’s frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel at Padua, Italy, show a more elaborate depiction of The Adoration of the Magi (c 1305). The infant Christ rests on the Virgin Mary’s knee; she was originally clad in her signature ultramarine blue, but that has worn away with the years. Mary is accompanied by Joseph and an angel, and the Holy Family is within a wooden shed. The three Magi pay their respects and present their gifts, accompanied by camels and at least two attendants. The comet that attracted their attention is shown as a fireball crossing the sky.

Diego Velázquez broke with tradition in his Adoration of the Magi from 1619 in depicting the figures as real humans rather than idealised models. He had to be careful to maintain distinct appearances for those such as Mary and Jesus who are divine, even covering the Virgin’s feet for the sake of propriety. But the other figures here all look to be real, living and breathing people, and the Magi for once aren’t visual clichés.

With the Age of Enlightenment, paintings came to include the most enlightened in more innovative ways, as ‘philosophers’, particularly in the chiaroscuro images of Joseph Wright of Derby.

In 1766, Wright exhibited one of his most enduring images of the period, A Philosopher Giving that Lecture on the Orrery, in which a Lamp is Put in Place of the Sun. The orrery, a miniature planetarium showing the movements of the planets and their moons, was an impressive high-end Grand Orrery, an expensive device that would undoubtedly have captivated the minds of those able to gaze at it.

There are numerous cues here to different narratives: to Locke’s educational theories with their emphasis on geography, understanding of astronomy, and Newton’s gravitation and mechanics. It has been proposed that the philosopher in the red gown is modelled on Isaac Newton, and the figure at the left taking notes is Wright’s friend Peter Perez Burdett.

In the nineteenth century, wisdom was strongly associated with science and technology, and the equipment used.

Joaquín Sorolla’s Portrait of Dr. Simarro at the Microscope from 1897 shows Doctor Luis Simarro Lacabra (1851-1921), who was an eminent psychiatrist in Madrid, and undertook pioneering research looking at the fine structure of the brain. Among his many achievements was a modification of an established technique for staining microscopic sections of brain, which proved a major advance and an inspiration to the great Spanish neurohistologist Ramon y Cajal. He is shown here with one of the most popular scientific instruments associated with knowledge and wisdom, the microscope.

Few artists have ever gathered as many of the great and wise as Raphael, in his large fresco of The School of Athens, painted between about 1509-10.

This wasn’t recognised as depicting eminent Greek philosophers until 1695, with Vasari’s account in his biography of Raphael assuming that it included a group of evangelists, and others claiming the figures are taken from Dante’s Divine Comedy.

This assorted collection of Greek philosophers, with a few extras, are chatting, teaching, and generally loafing about in an impressive building of grand classical style that is probably Raphael’s extended fantasy based on the contemporary architecture of Bramante. Although there’s no coherent narrative, it contains numerous diverting scenes in which the viewer is challenged to recognise the participants.

The central figures are Plato (left), who carries in his left hand a book titled TIMEO, and Aristotle (right), whose book bears the word ETICA. Seen further to the left in profile is Socrates, and below him is Pythagoras, who is writing in a book while a boy holds in front of him a small blackboard showing the theory of harmony.

His opposite number on the right is Euclid, who is bent over and holding a pair of compasses in his right hand. Behind him are Ptolemy, who is holding a globe and facing away, and Zoroaster, who holds a celestial sphere with his right hand. One striking figure for which I haven’t seen any plausible identification is the woman behind Pythagoras, who appears to have just walked out of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

This week’s two articles about reading paintings consider some of the more famous and unusual depictions of the likenesses of three or more people. Individual portraits have long been popular, and for many artists have brought in the income they’ve needed to paint as a career. Painting three or more portraits in a single image presents greater challenges, and in many cases complicates their reading considerably. Among the paintings included in today’s article are some of the hardest of all to read, that remain controversial.

The first and key step in starting to read a group portrait is to discover who, where and when. For some, a little digging around in contemporary historical records may be sufficient.

When Lavinia Fontana was in Rome, she painted the remarkable family Portrait of Bianca degli Utili Maselli with six of her children (1604-5), showing this nobleman’s wife, five of her sons, and her daughter Verginia, whose image is labelled to distinguish her from her brothers. The mother died in September 1605 after giving birth to her nineteenth child. Their lapdog was a sign of fidelity, and Fontana’s depiction of clothing exquisite.

In 1617, Michiel van Mierevelt and his son Pieter, specialists in portraiture, painted The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Willem van der Meer, one of the earliest portraits of a social group from the Dutch Golden Age. The members of this group are all ignoring the cadaver in front of them, preferring to look at the painter, and are thought to be members of the Surgeons’ Guild of the city of Delft, who commissioned this work.

Rembrandt painted his Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp in 1632, as an early commission soon after his arrival in Amsterdam. It’s a group portrait of distinguished members of the Surgeons’ Guild in their working environment. Most remarkable is the fact that its principal, Dr Tulp, and most of his colleagues aren’t looking at the dissected forearm.

A decade later, Rembrandt’s vast group portrait of The Night Watch (1642) is perhaps the most famous of them all, although it’s more correctly titled Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq. It features the commander and seventeen members of his civic guard company in Amsterdam, and took the artist three years to complete from his first commission to paint this for display in the great hall of the guards.

Captain Frans Banninck Cocq (in black with a red sash), followed by his lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch (in yellow with a white sash) are leading out this militia company, their colours borne by the ensign Jan Visscher Cornelissen. The small girl to the left of them is carrying a dead chicken, a symbol of arquebusiers, the type of weapon several are carrying.

Portraits of royal families have been regular commissions for their court painters. The best of these have greater artistic merit. Diego Velázquez’ Las Meninas, translated as The Maids of Honour, from about 1656-57 is another well-known example of a group portrait. In what is overtly a depiction of eleven people and a dog in a room in the Alcázar Palace, he uses composition and gaze to tell us more. Much depends on what we believe most of the figures are looking at. Reflected in the rectangular plane mirror on the far wall are King Philip IV and his wife Queen Mariana of Austria.

There has been dispute over whether the reflection shows the royal couple stood where the viewer is, or the mirror is reflecting their painted images on Velázquez’s canvas. How their images were generated is probably of secondary importance, as either way the gaze of most of the other figures is clearly directed not at the viewer, but at the King and Queen, who may be getting up to leave after sitting for Velázquez to paint them. In this reading, the most important people not in the painting only appear in reflection and the gaze of others.

In April 1800, Francisco Goya was commissioned by King Carlos IV to paint a family portrait, which proved to be the last of his royal commissions before the war with France, and his most important. It’s often said that Goya’s inspiration for his large canvas of Carlos IV of Spain and His Family (1800-01) was Las Meninas, but what he has painted is different in almost every respect other than the fact that the artist has taken the opportunity to include a self-portrait of himself painting the painting, as it were. Goya captures a moment of optimism when Spain and France were allies, and portrays his royal figures in stark reality.

In the mid-nineteenth century Gustave Courbet’s Painter’s Studio proved a turning point. One of the most unconventional group portraits, it influenced successors including Henri Fantin-Latour.

The Painter’s Studio from 1855 is one of the great ‘problem paintings’ that has been extensively analysed and ‘explained’ as allegory. Those classical approaches have recently been challenged by Herbert, who argues that trying to determine whether it is allegorical or realist is asking the wrong question.

The figures in the painting show individuals who had influence over Courbet’s life and artistic career. At the right are the artist’s friends and admirers, including his first patron Alfred Bruyas, critics Champfleury and Baudelaire who had been so positive in their reactions to his work, and others. At the left, a man with dogs has been interpreted as an allegory of the Emperor Napoleon III. Behind him are figures who were long assumed to be allegorical, but Hélène Toussaint has identified them as contemporary people, most of whom had been supporters of the Emperor’s regime.

Following a long series of studies, Henri Fantin-Latour’s first group portrait Homage to Delacroix was completed almost ten years later, in 1864. Its figures include two, Champfleury and Baudelaire, who had appeared in Courbet’s Painter’s Studio, together with those who Fantin rated as the brightest and best among modern painters, including his friends Whistler and Manet. Inevitably he included himself among such distinguished company.

But Fantin neither poses the puzzle of Courbet’s allegory, nor the social gathering of Manet’s Music in the Tuileries. Instead we have seven men looking at the viewer, and three gazing somewhere else. It almost looks like a ‘real’ group portrait, but lacking interactions between the figures, it’s clear that it’s eleven individual portraits, including that of Delacroix.

Fantin pressed on with his unusual group portraits, here in Studio at Les Batignolles from 1870, showing his friend Manet painting with a small group of friends peering over his shoulders. Its debt to Courbet is palpable. The figures were identified by the artist as:

• Otto Schölderer (standing, left),
• Pierre-Auguste Renoir,
• Émile Zola,
• Edmond Maître,
• Frédéric Bazille,
• Claude Monet (standing, right),
• Édouard Manet (seated, left)
• Zacharie Astruc (seated, right).

As a window into history, this is unique, showing Manet, Renoir, Zola, Bazille (who was to die that November in the Franco-Prussian War) and Monet in a fictional snapshot; it also inspired Bazille to paint a response and seems to have struck a chord with both artistic circles and the critics of the day. Although Fantin has integrated his figures better than in earlier paintings, this begs many questions such as what they’re all doing together, and whether the painting is about homage to Manet, who was still very much alive, or the meeting of an imaginary gentlemen’s club.

The sixth and last of Fantin’s group portraits, Around the Piano from 1885, shows members of a Wagner fan club in Paris at the time. They are each gazing at something different and not interacting in the least. Emmanuel Chabrier is playing the piano without looking at its keyboard or the music, and its other figures (bar one) appear distracted.

Maurice Denis was one of the few artists to take a deep interest in the late paintings of Paul Cézanne, and in 1900 paid his respects (although Cézanne didn’t die until 1906) in this Homage to Cézanne. The artist to whom this group of Nabis are paying their respects is represented by a painting, Cézanne’s Fruit Bowl, Glass and Apples. Although not entirely cohesive as a group, there are clear interactions taking place, and gazes reflect that, with Odilon Redon at the left and Paul Sérusier (foreground, at the right edge of the painting) clearly engaged with one another.

In 1902-03, Félix Vallotton painted a smaller group of Nabis in his Five Painters. Only Édouard Vuillard and Ker-Xavier Roussel seem to be joined in discussion, and there’s a strange array of hands around the centre of the canvas.

Tomorrow I’ll look at more conventional group portraits, including some featuring the families of artists.