To "cheese" or not to "cheese?

[Alexandra Tyng]

There are portraits that show teeth but the person isn't smiling broadly, or even smiling at all. Then there are others that show the person smiling, sometimes with a closed mouth, sometimes with an open mouth. I just looked through Sargent's collected works and found all sorts of variations, two of which I posted below.

I have never been a special fan of painting people with wide toothy grins, mostly because it looks static to me. Sargent relied on direct observation to paint, and his smiling people don't look static to me. Although he captured a moment in time, he probably waited for the moment to occur many times over, kind of like painting surf. The wide grin caught on a photo is great as a photo, but in my opinion it doesn't usually translate into paint that well.

That's not to say I think one should never paint a person smiling! I think there are all sorts of ways to do this. If the smile is a major identifying factor of a person (and I can think of several people for which that is true) then I could see the smiling expression being a good choice for a portrait. Sargent makes you feel this is true for Mrs. Darley Boit (below, image #1). She looks like a jolly, sociable matron.

I'm starting a portrait right now of someone who is inseparable from her smile, so I've decided to try and catch it in the moment of becoming, rather than fully blossomed. We shall see. . .!

[Allan Rahbek]

Originally Posted by Alexandra Tyng

catch it in the moment of becoming, rather than fully blossomed. We shall see. . .!

I'll look forward to see it.

I believe that it is important to show that the model knows why he is smiling, there must be a correspondence between the eyes and the mouth that shows why the model is smiling, or rather, that he know it himself !!

[Steven Sweeney]

Some years ago now, when I thought it was time to paint a portrait of my daughter, I was constrained by the fact that I was living in Taipei and she was visiting for but a few days, none of which she'd booked for sitting for a portrait by her dad. I did pencil and paint sketches and then turned to capturing photo references, and I kept trying to get her into "poses" in which she didn't show teeth. But the fact was, she's a person who is either always smiling or who, in the course of her natural conversational animation, is never close-mouthed. I tried to get her to settle into a close-lipped pose and she finally protested. "Dad! You can't ever NOT see my teeth! You can't not paint my teeth."

And it was so, and she was right, and for me to insist otherwise would have been foolish and would have itself produced a "fake" image, because in my child's exuberance, a smile is natural, as is the animation with which she greets everyone and everything. (Bottle that, and you're a millionaire.)

Wish I could say I did it best, but Chris Saper did. Her version is on her website.

[Anne Bobroff-Hajal]

Thanks so much to all of you for the images and thoughts you

[Alexandra Tyng]

Anne,

As a fan of your blog, I love what you're doing and I don't mind if you take things that I say on the forum threads and quote them in your blog, provided I know what you are quoting first! So I think it is best to ask permission of each artist, each time.

Maybe you should also ask permission of Cynthia Daniel first; after all, she owns the SOG site and forum.

With the exception of certain sections, all threads can be viewed by the public anyway, and people are aware of that when they post here.

I've often thought someone should compile a book on different aspects of portraiture based on quotes from this forum. The topics are endless: composition, backgrounds, colors and color mixing, control of values, facial expressions, value massing, etc! Talk about a lot of work getting permissions from everyone!

[Richard Bingham]

That is a tremendous idea!

Serious fora like this one generate (and re-generate) a wealth of practical knowledge. If anyone (or a dedicated group) had the time, energy and perseverence to compile all this kewl stuff into a book, it would be a shame to strangle it by having to get permissions and wrangle over "intellectual property".

Nothing I know about either painting or portraiture is my own - "pat. pend.". At whatever level we find ourselves in our development as portraitists, we all stand on the shoulders of giants. If this idea comes to action, and those sifting the boards for material should find anything I've posted worthwhile enough to add into the compilation, they are freely welcome to it, with or without acknowledging "credit". It's the spirit in which I participate here . . . no strings.

Perhaps a thread could be started where participants would simply indicate their "permission" ?

[Alexandra Tyng]

Originally Posted by Richard Bingham

Perhaps a thread could be started where participants would simply indicate their "permission" ?

Great idea! It would sure save a lot of time and effort.

[Anne Bobroff-Hajal]

LOL, this is what's great about this forum: two opposite points of view, each having validity, with the supporting arguments supplied - moving toward possible consensus through sharing ideas.

Actually, this etiquette issue came up for me just now because the forum discussion about smiles and teeth is so complete that I felt I hardly had anything to write beyond what's been said here. In the past, my blog posts have expressed my own point of view, with a few supporting ideas and quotes from elsewhere. (I've also used many images by portraitists around the world.) But in the case of my smiles post, I'll probably rely on forum opinion more fully than I've done in the past. That's what made me feel I should check in here to see how people feel about it.

Since I began my blog, I've always contacted artists whose words and/or images I put online. Everyone who has responded has, without exception, been happy to have their images or words used. I imagine this is partly because I only put up words and images that I've learned or gained insight from. I never post other artists work to criticize it. Of course, being written about on a blog gives an artist more exposure. And any new link to their website from another related website tends to boost them in search engines.

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