This paper aims to study the changes of gesture between portraits and portrait photography in the modern era of East Asia, where traditionally ancestral portraits have been enshrined and treasured with high esteem. During the pre-modern period, a portrait was required to preserve ‘a likeness to an object' so that it was considered to represent essential features of the object. Major goal of such portraits is to indicate virtuously ideal figures and to utilize them for the purpose of education, religion, and recording. As the conventional East Asian paintings have placed special importance on expressing a likeness as well as its spirit of the object, “Jeonsin-Sajo” [伝神写照 (a theory suggesting that portrait is what transmits spirit by eye)] and “Ilho-bulsa” [一毫不似 (a theory suggesting that if the portrait is different from the actual person even a single hair, it becomes a whole different person)] have strongly influenced the painting traditions. To be specific, the word “Sajo” is to describe a shape of an object and “Jeonsin” is to draw spirit, which is hidden within an object, so that “Jeonsin-Sajo” is a style of painting that expresses the object's spirit by shape. On the other hand, the word “Ilho” means a single hair that represents the mind of deceased ancestor. On the contrary, such portraits present less movement and the lack of emotion. East Asian sitters, in most cases surrounded by empty background, suggest no particular lively gesture. During the pre-modern period, however, there are several specific characteristics derived from the Chinese portraits, which face the frontal view with the hand position of one on the knee and the other holding a belt on the waist, on the chair covered with the whole tiger skin, and with the placement of the shoes on the platform, which is similar to the shape of Chinese character “Pal” [八(the number eight)]. On the other hand, the Korean portraits are strongly opposed to the pose of hands, which prefer the folded ones, so that they are interpreted not to describe the self-expression and arrogance conducted by the pose of the hands and the frontal view. Compared to the Chinese and Japanese ones, the Korean portraits particularly served for memorial service and ancestor worship ceremony. However, the chair covered with tiger skin, which signifies social wealth and pride, and the placement of shoes in the shape of “Pal”, were widespread until the early modern age of Korea. The photographic portraiture imported by the Western missionary, eventually had a large impact on the East Asian portraits as well as the visual culture of Korea, China, and Japan in the modern period. Hence, the changes of gesture in terms of photography were adjusted and modified by the preference of East Asian society.