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March 12, 2005

Not painting a portrait

Painting a portrait is difficult. It’s an achievement arranging a series of colours and tones on a panel and have it look like a face. To make it look like someone in particular [the sitter, ideally] is even more tricky.

Holly-halfway.jpg

But if you can arrange a series of colours and tones on a panel such that it doesn’t look like the sitter, that’s good going. It’s a positive thing in itself: to definitely not look like someone in particular, the mere fact that the viewer can say it doesn’t look like Holly is a start.

All I need to do then is move the colours and tones around a bit until it does look like Holly. The downside of this argument is that there are considerably more faces that don’t look like Holly. So statistically I’m bound to spend a long time with a painting that doesn’t look like the sitter.

“And I haven’t sent the two Messengers, either. They’re both gone into town. Just look along the road, and tell me if you can see either of them.”
“I see nobody on the road,” said Alice.
“I only wish I had such eyes,” the King remarked in a fretful tone. “To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance too!”

Through the Looking Glass and what Alice found there.
by Lewis Carroll

Posted by john at March 12, 2005 08:01 AM

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