portraits -- altering reality

The nude is universal. No clothing to signify rank and station, just the person as human, naked, representing all of us. The portrait, on the other hand, is the depiction of one specific human at one particular time in their life, dressed and accessorized to support an individual identity, unique and sealed forever in a painting. A little book, written by a portrait artist and read long ago, suggested a few tips for pleasing the client to any who followed. In his observations there were larger truths about the nature of art in general.

He suggested an absolutely accurate portrait would result in the same complaint from family members, that the subject appears too old, and there’s a reason. It has to do with the way we see, all of us all the time. They’ve known this person over many years, and what they see is a composite image, from childhood up until now, and it’s a younger self than the more objective artist sees and represents. He also said merging the features of the successful businessman with the visage of the current president would always be met with glad approval and a check. We’ve recently discussed how farmers see cows, subject subjective -- 1-29, and turns out painting is stranger and intellectually more complicated than taking pictures.

There’s no magic in paint, sleeping away in the tube, but applied to canvas the pigments produce an instrument of pure mentality, a version of reality which seeks to produce resonances within the viewer, reinforcing or altering expectations, realigning and recalibrating the way the world is seen. People instinctively seek sympathetic portrait artists who’ll help them seem younger and prettier, more earnest and handsome, because they know it works, that the successful portrait changes the way the person looks to everyone else, and even in the mirror. Still, portraits are just one small department, a single application, of an immense slumbering technology available to the individual house or apartment dweller, the progressive CEO with offices, reception and break areas, or anyone who wishes to utilize the power of art to change their immediate and long term circumstance, to change the world.