The Evolution of Portraiture

The individual self-portrait is thought to have begun with Durer. And I do think that portraiture of humans changes and their early conventions, for example, if you look at the portraits of British monarchs,. They're quite stiff and formal and they aren't very individually expressive. What's expressive is their jewels and their velvet clothing and their crowns or things like that. It seems to me that some portraits aren't really about the person being portrayed but just a pretext for a beautiful pattern as it were.