Do your features and personality come out in your paintings of others?

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

At the suggestion of Alex, I thought I would start this thread.

How much of yourself comes through in your paintings of other people. Does everyone you paint have a look of you?

Leonardo da Vinci, apparently, looks very much like the Mona Lisa. In fact, some have suggested it is a self-portrait in disguise.

Are each of your paintings in some way autobiographical?

And, lastly, what makes a portrait painting more important - the painter who painted it or the sitter who sat for it? For example, do we look at Andy Warhol's images of Marilyn Monroe because of the actress or the artist?

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

(if I ever get to teach art at university I might set this as an exam topic)

[Julie Deane]

I don't know about personality yet, (not enough samples) but I have to guard against the portrayed face getting too elongated, like my own.

[Claudemir Bonfim]

Nope, it never happened.

[Grethe Angen]

Originally Posted by Thomasin Dewhurst

And, lastly, what makes a portrait painting more important - the painter who painted it or the sitter who sat for it?

I`d say with commissioned portraits, it is no doubt the sitter,
the painter is just doing his/her job.
For non -commissioned portrait and figurative work one can make an interpretation of the sitter/model,and the painter is most important.

[Renee Brown]

Thomasin,

First of all I really enjoyed your stage paintings, and they immediately reminded me of Degas. I love it when light is the subject.

I have to say that I believe it is impossible to separate the artist from the sitter. Since the sub conscious is at work 24/7 ,one should really be asking the people who see and know the artist, if they think autobiographical material is present in the finished work. Plus, I believe if the artist and the sitter have a meeting of the minds, a great rapport, etc., this will be even more pronounced.

The technical features may be the sitters, but the eyes , the gestures will also say, "artist". Kind of a "Kilroy was here!", or your initials carved into the tree.

My family immediately identifies our family members and myself in almost all of my paintings. Granted this happens more often in non portrait paintings, but unless a robot is painting the portrait, then yes, the artist creeps in, wanted or unwanted.

"Everything is autobiographical and everything is a portrait." - Lucian Freud

"Everything is Autobiographical"-Freud

A friend of ours had a book published recently, and when I asked him if he thought it was autobiographical ( it screamed autobiography), he said, "Oh, no"! I loved that.

Renee

[Enzie Shahmiri]

I hope that my likeness does not come through in commissioned portraits, but I have noticed that I gravitate to the colors I love and keep putting them in. Something about the mood of the painting is often mine as well and that has to do with the type of poses and the particular gazes of the subject that I keep gravitating too.

So in response to your question

How much of yourself comes through in your paintings of other people?

I have to say quite a bit!

[Sharon Knettell]

Portrait Quotations

Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his character appear in spite of him.
Samuel Butler

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
Oscar Wilde

I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.
Samuel Johnson

Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.
Samuel Butler

A man's manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


I think that no matter how we think it is not about us, how can it be any other way? We can not leave ourselves behind.

It is always me.

[Enzie Shahmiri]

These quotations are very nice, Sharon.

[Richard Bingham]

Geez Sharon . . . cop-out! How about a scad of quotes from painters pontificating on poetry? (ha ha ha)

What a fun topic. I find oftimes sitters have aspects of their physicality reminiscent of my family members or my close friends. If I'm not careful, they begin resembling "Uncle George" perhaps more than the sitter really does in actuality. Another aspect of this "phenomenon" is that I find certain "facial types" less problematic than others, to strike a quick likeness. I think this owes to a "visual memory" that results from familiarity.

In the case of "current" commissions, I agree it's the sitter who dictates the "importance" of a portrait. Recently, I noted a fair number of portraits of donors hanging in the halls of a local university teaching hospital. With few exceptions, I'm sorry to say, most of 'em were execrable! Yet, there they hang, the "importance" attached to them being the fact that they bear testimony of the sitters' largesse. Very soon, (but not soon enough) they'll be pitched into the dustbin of history, where they belong. The worthiness of any painting is intrinsic, regardless of the subject matter, so ultimately it will be incidental who the sitter was . . . if the painting is any good at all. The identity of many of Rembrandt's sitters are unknown.