Thread: Quick sketch
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Old 01-29-2007, 10:33 AM   #11
Sharon Knettell Sharon Knettell is offline
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Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 1,730
Ilaria,

I just LOVE that baby. The quality of the paint is as fresh as he is.

Ah! speeding up.To the swiftest goes the race. There is a paragraph about that in a wonderful book of portraiture that I have, called "2000 Years of Portraits". The book is out of print but it a good overview of portraiture through the millenniums. The author was pondering the fate of this subject in the 20th century. He remarked that to sitters in the past , it was almost entertainment as they had less distractions. They knew who the best portraitists were and were quite willing to sit. There were many of course that had time restraints, Washington was bored out of his gourd. He said that at the present, unfortunately, many of the prizes and commissions do go those who are the swifter painters, not the best ones. Sargent would do the heads over a dozen times or more until he nailed it. Who would dare to do that today.
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