Portraits Ian James © June 2009

What is a painted portrait?

A portrait is a commemoration, an heirloom, a unique image.

A painted portrait is, in addition, a coming together of:

• the client’s appearance and personality
• the artist’s responses, experience and skill
• the physical artistic processes
• the subtle, subconscious or mysterious symbiosis between artist and model
• the long tradition of portraiture

and should express these things. It should be a human record that, whilst consisting of mere blobs of paint, has a mysterious presence or reality more than the sum of its parts. It should be an adventure, too.

Painted portraits are planned, constructed, adjusted, refined, considered, revised, with a very defined goal - just like symphonies or architecture. Sometimes the hand of a Muse or the grace of God is evident in the result. They are very unique objects.

Photography & likeness

Photographs capture exactly the lights and colours entering the camera lens, which represent the subject at a specific moment, in specific lighting conditions, in a single mood, from a single viewpoint. Photographs give two-dimensional instances that age immediately.

For a painter to compete with a camera for likeness is highly challenging and, for all but a handful of specialists, extremely disappointing. Photo-likeness is best left to a camera; it takes only 1/8 of a second, and allows no “error”.

The copying of a photograph in paint is quite popular, but is a poor compromise, lacking both the immediacy of photography and the originality of an unrestrained painter’s touch. The relatively new phenomenon of electronically retouched and idealized photos (using Photoshop) gives an awkward hybrid with neither the honesty of photos nor the live interpretation of a skilled painter. Examples seen in fashion magazines will likely become even more monstrous as time goes by.

In many cases photo-portraits lack vitality, especially for the observer who does not know the subject well, or cannot remember the person and their personality at that moment. To finalize the negative aspects of photo-portraiture: a finished picture exists as but a sheet of glossy paper.

Stylization

In the long tradition of portrait painting (which perhaps began with Egyptian sarcophagus lids), the finest examples incorporate some form of stylization. There are many portraits which rank as some of the most exquisite art objects ever created. And while many try to capture some form of likeness, many are fascinating for their interest in abstract ideals - of shape, harmony, ornamentation etc.

There are a number of reasons why modern portraiture benefits from an amount of stylization:

• photography does not go deep enough
• western formal-likeness portraiture (at least since the time of Gainsborough) has grown very dull
• expressionist styles are colourful
• it helps explore the non-trivial, subtle essence of the client
• it can emphasize general abstract qualities for contemplation
• circumscribing appearance with artistic charm is better than aiming for likeness and failing

Some fine examples of stylization in portraiture:

Tudor	Ikon	Miró