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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.
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