CHAPTER XXX: PORTRAITS
Don’t look upon portraits as something any one can do. A portrait is
more than a likeness, and the painting of it gives scope for all of the
great qualities possible in art. Only a great painter can paint a great
portrait. Some great painters rest their fame on work in this field, and
others have added by this to the fame derived from other kinds of work.
You must not think it easy to paint a portrait, or rest satisfied with having got a likeness.
Likeness is a very commonplace thing, which almost any one can get. If there were no
other qualities to be tried for, it would hardly be worth while to paint a portrait. Back of
the likeness, which a few superficial lines may give, is the character, which needs not
only skill and power to express but great perception to see, and judgment to make use of
to the best advantage.
Character. - The first requisite in a good portrait is character, - more than likeness,
more than color or grace, before everything else, it needs this; nothing can take the place
of it and make a portrait in any real sense of the word. Everything else may be added to
this, and the picture be only so much the greater; but this is the fundamental beauty of
the portrait. Some of the greatest painters made pictures which were very beautiful, yet
the greatest beauty lay in the perception and expression of character. Holbein’s
wonderful work is the apotheosis of the direct, simple, sincere expression of character in
the most frank and unaffected rectitude of drawing. There are masterpieces of Albrecht
Durer which rest on the same qualities, as you can see in the Portrait of Himself by
Durer. Likeness is incidental to character; get that, and the likeness will be there in spite
of you.
Hubert Herkomer said once that he did not try for likeness; if only he got the right
values in the right places, the likeness had to be there. The same can hardly be said of
character, for this depends on the selection from the phases of expression which are
constantly passing on the face, those which speak most of the personality of the man;
and the emphasis of these to the sacrifice of others. The painting of character is
interpretation of individuality through the painting of the features, and, like all
interpretation, depends more on insight and selection than on representation.
Try for this always. Search for it in the manner, in the pose and occupation, of your
sitter. Get likeness if you will, of course; but remember that there is a petty likeness,
which may be accident or not, which you can always get by a little care in drawing; and
that there is a larger character which includes this, and does not depend on exaggeration
of feature or emphasis of accidental lines, but on the large expressiveness of the
individual. You may fin it elsewhere than in the face. The character affects the whole
movement of the man. The set of the head and the great lines of the face, the head and
shoulders alone would give it to you even if the features were left out. Study to see this,
and to express it first, and then put in as much detail as you see fit, only taking care
never to lose the main thing in getting those details.