Black Cat Bone vs. Blake Gopnik
 

The Black Cat Bone vs. the Blake Gopnik view of portraiture

Here

Depends on the client and on who's definition of art we're going by.

No.

I'm slitting my wrists right now, mostly on account of Michele's relativist reply. Farewell, cruel world!

( . . . uhh joke?)

Thanks for sharing Julie.

Jeez, am I pompous or WHAT!

Boy that is a hard one. Sargent gave it up at 50 and had to be coaxed to do any portraiture after that.

I love portraiture, I know many think I disdain it. What I hate is the feeling of being a bug under a clients thumb, when the rent is due. Give me a lady in a ballgown any day and I am in heaven.

You start out with great visions of the great thing you are about to do, then WHAM! The client comes in with his portrait already painted in his head and just wants to pay you to execute it. OR, they don't like anything you have to offer and point to another's painting for inspiration.

Here is an example of what I think is art that was hated by the client.

No. From your posts, I'd say you're passionate, sincere, and hold high standards.

Sharon, do you have the "back story" on this portrait that tells us the sitter was unhappy with it? (many of Sargent's do). If not, why did you say that?

Consider that by the time JSS "quit" doing "mug shots" he had pursued a career as a portraitist for over 25 years, so prolific a story circulates about a diplomat who considered it a safe conversational gambit to ask people he met for the first time, "So, how do you like your Sargent portrait?"

I'm not sure it's true in all cases, but as I look around, there's a definite "burnout" factor in people who work a demanding profession for a quarter century. If they can't re-invent it or quit, they can get annoyingly cranky!

I know I am.

The information about this portrait came from the book , "John Singer Sargent", edited by Elaine Kilmurray and Richard Ormond-Princeton University Press.

It was a quote from a conversation-"We were told that she did not like it"