A Question of Distance

[Julianne Lowman]

When painting portraits, or any piece of artwork, what is the optimum distance the viewer should stand from the artwork to give the best delivery of likeness? I've seen some photo-realistic portraits that are gorgeous even up close, but most, including many of the Old Masters should be viewed at least a few feet away.

When reading about Wende Carpole creating her pastel portraits, she stands away from the painting, then turns around and views it with a mirror, giving even greater distance to insure accuracy.

Why do some paintings that look great up close, look out of sorts at a distance and vice versa?

[Steven Sweeney]

What proved to be an overgeneralization was the

[Chris Saper]

Julianne,

What an interesting question you raise. I'm thinking about it from entirely different viewpoints: The "read" that a given painting possesses, the scale, and the surface quality.

The "read" of a painting, to me, is its ability to be seen well at a distance, and readability is a function of value clarity. Solid massing of values makes or breaks a painting's read. Where values are not clearly differentiated, the viewer needs to stnd progressively closer to see what is going on within the frame. There are paintings that are beautiful close up, but don't hold together as well at a distance.

The other aspect of viewing distance I am thinking of is surface/textural quality...what springs to mind are Robert Johnson's works, especially as viewed in his book
On Becoming a Painter, or on his website.http://robertjohnsonart.com/.

The title pages throughout the book are luscious, with wonderful color details that are rich and beautifully abstract, and stand on their own as exciting images. From a distance, many paintings may appear to have a very smooth surface, yet once you walk up close to them, they're anything but smooth.

As to optimal viewing distance, the paintings' scale is obviously important, since it is not sensible to view a 6" x 8" painting from 12 feet, nor a 30" x 40" piece from 12 inches. Comfortable to me just means that I can encompass the whole painting visually without having to step back.

[Tom Edgerton]

Richard Whitney has often said that the distance that most viewers will fall into almost automatically is about two to three times the vertical height of the painting, though this will vary with lighting, hanging position on the wall, and some other factors. It may be a good position to adopt while painting to make an overall evaluation at a given stage. I've tried to remember it just to jog me to step back often enough. The mirror thing is good also, in that it helps overcome limitations in a tiny studio, as viewing your work in a mirror behind you will automatically double the viewing distance.

Chris, maybe this speaks to your point about where a comfortable overall viewing distance is for most viewers.

Cheers...