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Thanks, Marcus, that's really thought-provoking. Something for the would-be "commissioners" to contemplate. I think the intent is really the same, whether the person we are painting is alive or dead. We try to capture the movement and the expression and the spark of animation on the canvas so the portrait will carry on to give future generations a glimpse of the whole aura and feeling of this particular individual. It's a lot of extra work to create a posthumous portrait, and the references are usually bad and frustrating, but if we can pull it off, then it has this quality. I was SO nervous about people's reaction when it was unveiled. My own brother hadn't ever seen it, because he was away while I was painting it (actully I could have used him as a model). After it was unveiled, an architect came up to me and said that my father spoke to him as he was standing in front of it! I thought,
"Well, at least it spoke to one person. That's encouraging." You might say I was cautiously positive.
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