Why a Portrait

******

Portraits:

"The aim of Art is to present not the outward appearance of things, but their inner significance; for this, not the external manner and detail, constitutes true reality." - Aristotle

To paint a photorealistic portrait is a learnable skill. But is a portrait simply a perfect likeness to the sitter? Not a good portrait. Not to me. There is more to physical expression than just a likeness; there is the expression of character, of moral quality, of personality––the qualities that define us that aren't easily drawn out or frozen in composition. To paint a true portrait is to paint who someone really is.

So, who is someone? There are symbols and clues to who a person is that can’t be fully captured in a photograph. Those just grab moments along a time stream. Portrait paintings are about making choices. I’m not terribly interested in what a subject looks like, I want to know what a person is all about. Appearance is only skin deep, and skin is not a single flesh tone, but different colors and colored glazes layered on top of each other. That’s the technical side of painting, not just making sure a portrait looks like someone, but instead creating the symbol of someone or what they stand for as a human being out of oil and mineral. Symbols give meaning, can express more than words or essays on a subject. Symbols cross language and cultural barriers when done right. That’s why all the paintings above are important, why they lasted, why they still mean something, why they tell us who those people are even if we don’t know them. More than that, it tells us about the world around them. That is what gives strength to art. It can manipulate what we perceive something to mean or mislead us into thinking what we want to believe. It can have either a positive or negative effect depending on where your aim is. A portrait can help us understand the person without ever knowing them face to face.

*you wanna talk about killer fucking hair, she has it going on

**oh how I loved it the moment I saw it

***as a kid, Vigo's portrait really captivated me.  How cool is it that a portrait is supernatural.  If I could do that...