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Past or Future
Interesting article Cynthia. Thanks for posting it.
This author seems to place the greatest value on those portraits that are spontaneous and sketchier, the very portraits which we as portrait painters get beat out us more often than I would like to admit. There seems to be much admiration for Ron Sherr's portrait of Bush senior. I like the portrait too, but had I been working on it I'm not sure I could have held myself from finishing the edges around the suit. I can't tell you if that would be from bowing down to peoples expectations or a general pedantism from working too much from photos.
Not to change the subject, but I'd be interested in hearing what you all think about what the Brits are doing with portraiture. There's no grander subject than a monarch yet more often than not it seems the Queen or her family are painted flatly as ordinary blokes with mishapened bodies a la Lucien Freud.
I vacillate between thinking the Brits are way out on a dead limb with no connection to Zorn or Sagent or deLazlo and thinking that we look too much to the past for inspiration.
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