Art In History - Art Blog
The Portrait Attitude
by art_in_history , April 6, 2009—12:00 AM
It is something of a truism that portraits are the hardest subject for an artist. This is certainly true for beginning artists, but NOT because the human head is the most difficult thing to render. A head is far less complex than a grove of trees, a bed of flowers or a meadow. In fact, the natural symmetry and order of a face makes it a relatively easy subject to capture in general. What is difficult is the demands we place on ourselves when doing a portrait...and which the sitter places on us as well. This is the portrait attitude.
When I teach portraiture, I say there are three levels to "truth" which are at play. The first is the truth of form in space: size, shape and organization; this is the head as still-life. If we are doing a STUDY of a head, this may be our primary enterprise; if so, it will be much simpler than many still life groupings. This kind of study is very useful when getting into portraiture.
The second level of truth is "organic truth". The head and the human figure are not just an arbitrary arrangement of forms. In a still life, you can move the bottle to the left, or replace it with a vase, with no loss of truth. However, there is only one right way that a head attaches to shoulders by way of the neck...and it is NOT like a lollypop on a stick. If we do not understand and capture this organic truth, the result will be awkward, lifeless and unconvincing.
However, it is the third level of truth that is the acid test: the truth to the individual. In a portrait, we want it to be THAT head, not just A head. What makes a landscape easier, when by rights it should be vastly more difficult, is that we do not care if we capture THAT tree, just "treeness", and neither does the viewer. With a portrait we want a likeness, that which separates this individual from any other.
Up to this point, the portrait attitude is one which we could apply to any subject. A still life artist will often take a portrait attitude toward the individual objects in his arrangement. I have often done tree portraits, searching for the form and character of this particular tree. Fortunately, the tree never looks over my shoulder and says the mouth is all wrong.
But a physical likeness is only the beginning! The human face is a mirror of the soul, and a true likeness must capture to subtleties that bring out the inner nature of the person being depicted. Since the are often movements, expressions and gestures, we have the task of suggesting them with a single image.
But it would STILL be easy if the viewers - the sitters - were as undiscriminating about faces as they are about other subjects. What makes portraiture by far the most demanding subject is the sophistication of even the most unsophisticated viewer when it comes to faces. Human beings are trained from birth to read subtle changes in expression, to know the attitude and intentions of the person in front of them. They are experts! A sitter may not know WHAT is wrong with the protrait, but they are very sensitive to the fact that the expression is not right, not "true". I always listen to what they have to say...and then try to figure out what it is in the image that is actually at fault.
COMMENTS
( homepage )
04/14/2009 * 10:27:00
Thank you for your posts. They are very inspiring and I enjoy reading them and putting to work. I especially liked the man in the mirror. Great imagination and wonderful job. I look forward to seeing more of your work. Being a portrait artist myself, the advice you have shared is very welcoming.
Connie
( homepage )
04/09/2009 * 00:25:15
i not only want to thank you peter for sharing, but everyone here at artId, who blogs...i love reading what other painters have to say... i don't get to dialogue much with other painters, so i appreciate being able to come to this site and feel as if i just have...this should prove to be educational, for anyone who would visit the site and parttake...i shall strive to contribute...
04/08/2009 * 15:41:50
Hi Juan,
In speaking about the universal within the particular you have hit upon something very important and mysterious. There are certainly artists who have striven for universality by idealized or generalizing their subjects - Millet's iconic peasant figures, for example - but what interests me is that by really being true to an individual you can be paradoxically universal...because of the fundamental humnness in each of us.
( homepage )
04/07/2009 * 08:18:12
Well put, Peter (and your works speak nicely for themselves). I call that first of three levels the fundamental mode. If the artist gets that right, then the details should fall into place. Secondly, yes - the head is seldom square and plumb to the shoulders. As for the nuances of that third level, well, I've been waiting all morning for a chance to use the word physiognomy. Thanks!
( homepage )
04/07/2009 * 00:05:20
In addition to capturing the uniqueness of a face and the expression of the sitter, the artist must interpret the soul in a way that is consistent with his own artistic style and present the subject just so: that it captures the universal human transcending the banal.
Thomas Kuehl ( homepage )
04/18/2009 * 17:06:17
I heard somewhere that there is a specific part of the brain for face recognition. This contributes to the difficulty of creating a likeness since we are so good at seeing and interpreting faces.