Go for excellence in portraiture

[Alexandra Tyng]

Richard, I wholeheartedly agree with your summary. Well put.

[Tito Champena]

I believe that a critique is a great teaching tool that helps the student (we all are) to SEE like a painter and to improve our artistic TASTE. To ask: "are you satisfied with the likeness?" is an unnecessary question, because if one isn't satisfied with the degree of likeness in a portrait, no paint would have been used, only charcoal or thinned paint for a sketch.
Once a painting has been finished, the more useful teaching comments would be about composition, color harmony, achievement of the illusion of atmospheric depth, roundness of form, adequate perspective (linear and aerial), mood, etc. Of course, to obtain these effects on a painting, one has to have adequate drawing skills, a sense of color harmony, adequate use of edges and most of all, to be able to put together an attractive combination of shapes, chroma and values that make a painting a pleasant picture to look at. The likeness of the sitter doesn't make a painting good or bad, it's the total effect that the artist has put on the support that counts, regardless of whether the painter used live models or photos, and also regardless of the painter's artistic or stylistic goals. As I said it before, when I look at a painting as a whole, I can feel attracted by it, rejected by it or causing no feelings at all. I prefer to be told you: "why don't you try it again, your painting does not look good..." rather that try to dissect it into edges, color temperature, proportions, values, etc. As serious painters, we all are supposed to be able to pick up most of our errors in technique and be able to correct them without somebody having to tell us "this is what you did wrong". I have seen many paintings submitted for critiques that have been "corrected" according to various "advices", and to me, those paintings never stopped looking flat and unattractive, because the problem was deeper that an edge being too sharp or an "unnatural" color..

[Allan Rahbek]

Using a photo requires that you have taken one and that is where the problems begin.

Sharon is putting her finger on a sore place and we know it.

I once tried to have a debate about this issue, in the tread

[Geary Wootten]

Originally Posted by Allan Rahbek

Thinking about it makes me want to postulate that I have seen more painters being good photographers than the opposite.

To sort of "piggy back" you Allan, this statement makes me think we should all think more like SCULPTORS than anything when we are drawing and painting from life, photos, or the combination of both. I say this because I always am adding on and then taking away stuff when I'm working. Just like a sculptor. Oh, to be like a Heidi Maiers!!!

~Gear

[Steven Sweeney]

I was about to quote and comment on the same words of Allan. In fact, learning the fundamentals of painting a good picture completely changed the way I take photographs, even if I don't intend to use them for references. If what I see in the viewfinder wouldn't make a good painting, I usually don't press the shutter button anymore. It's really jazzed up my photo albums a lot.

But another aside -- not a continuation, because as I said, I've contributed what I have on the subject, but I realize now from intervening comments in another thread that I've been misunderstood here, and a clarification is needed.

For critique purposes, by all means post the reference if you'd like. It's always useful to some degree. As I said before, it's essentially the "model" to which we compare your execution. To reiterate, posting the photo is most useful if you want to know if your painting accurately depicts the information in the photograph.

The catch is that, even if it does, it still may not be a good picture, in terms of design, composition, or other elements. That assessment can be made from the painting alone. However, it still may be useful to see the reference (the "model"), simply because it could be the case that the vision, as it has been put, in your photograph actually exceeds what is revealed in the painting. In that sense, seeing the photo could concededly provide some basis for discussing elements other than mere accuracy.

And it can go the other way. A reference photo could, yes, "prove" that the painting was accurate, and yet prove too much, if the result is, say, a poor value design in the photo itself. You must be willing to hear that, too. (If in doubt, consider pre-posting in the reference photo critique thread.)

If nothing else comes of this thread, it may be an appreciation of the fact that you are the artist, and you are in control of your artistic expression, and you, not a photograph, are responsible for what you put on the canvas (and for what you put on your palette, and so on).

An analogous pitfall that is heard by every teacher of fiction writing is that, well, since it "really happened!" (or, since it's in the photo), it is therefore a believable and good story. That is as false in visual as in written art. Another is the protest that it took 10 years of selfless toil to write a manuscript for a novel, and therefore it must be worthy and publishable (that is, "good.") No it musn't.

[Sharon Knettell]

Actually it was Bill Whitaker's profound observation that started this discussion. I think it should be reread by all of us.

I have read to the arguments both pro and con vis-a-vis the use of photography. Somehow I cannot imagine Sargent snapping Lady Sasoon's picture, bowing out gratefully and tacking the reference to his easel to finish the painting.

I have some beautiful photos of a Eurasian student of mine at RISD. She has gone back to Japan. I would love to use them, but I keep hoping I will find another model that could substitute.

I am not negating some of the fine work that has been done from photographs, but I am saying, it seems to be increasingly the modus operandi, and I think realism is suffering because of it.The arguments I have read seem to say that, yes, because of the state of portrait art, they are a necessity. Also, models are expensive and hard to find. I have not seen an argument that photography is a better source, only a more convenient one.

I can only speak for myself . When I first started using models it was like looking at my subject without a scrim in front of her.

"For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face."

[Steven Sweeney]

(If this isn't the right article, Sharon, give a shout.)


A Bastion Against Cultural Obscenity

In a speech delivered at Burlington House last night, the critic Robert Hughes calls for a revitalised Royal Academy to defend art against the degrading power of the wealthy collectors.


Many years ago, when I was still cutting my first pearly fangs as an art critic, one thing used to be taken for granted by me and practically everyone I knew in what is so optimistically termed the

[Kimberly Dow]

Originally Posted by Sharon Knettell

Kim. You have done some remarkable work.

I'll admit to being hopelessly shallow. That's good enough for me (for now) - rant on. Later I will expect to be called 'Master'.

I'm kidding - dont hit me!

[Julie Deane]

Originally Posted by Steven Sweeney

If nothing else comes of this thread, it may be an appreciation of the fact that you are the artist, and you are in control of your artistic expression, and you, not a photograph, are responsible for what you put on the canvas (and for what you put on your palette, and so on).

An analogous pitfall that is heard by every teacher of fiction writing is that, well, since it "really happened!" (or, since it's in the photo), it is therefore a believable and good story. That is as false in visual as in written art.

From "Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art" by Madeleine L'Engle:

"Credibility in creativity is a hard lesson to learn, and I

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Julie,

It is interesting to me that you are going through a time of reflection as well. It seems as artists, we set these goals and as we achieve them we are never quiet satisfied and yearn for more.

Commissioned work has many benefits, but it places also many constraints on the artist. Most portrait commissions are like a nice acquaintance, you are happy to see them, you do everything in your power to make the time you spent with them a success, but when it's all over you yearn for something more fulfilling.

I yearn for a love affair, a commission that gives me sleepless nights, has me up in my studio at 6am and keeps me enthralled until the sun sets.

This search for artistic fulfillment happens only when a client is so enamored with your painting style, that price becomes no objection and you are offered the "carte blanche".

I believe the only way to reach that point and to attract such clients, is to break free from the mundane. This might involve hiring a model or bribing family members to pose in garments and staged settings, that allow the artist to be as creative as he/she wishes.

By creating such a body of work the artist is thus able to not only explore his/her artistic expression, but also push the art of portraiture to new heights.