Consulate of Malta

[Alicia Kornick]

Peggy,

You are a painting wizard! You captured his essence. Beautiful piece of work.

Alicia

[Steven Sweeney]

I keep coming back to steal things from this portrait. Don't worry, I'll put everything back when I'm finished, and in the right places. (The Maltese Cross was a real ice-breaker at last night's holiday soiree.)

Very strong "presence", as others have said. The hands are great -- the clip should be added to the Show of Hands thread.

[Deladier Almeida]

I am particularly attracted by the outline the figure carves on the background. The design of the composition is balanced, dynamic and inviting.

Your skillful treatment of the mass of the head tells me that you possess the rare ability to separately look at the subject as mass and as light falling on mass.

I was at the Legion of Honor museum in SF recently looking at portraits and it occurred to me as a revelation that those big guys (Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Rubens), painted the human face as if they were painting monuments seen from afar. The nose and ears protrude and cast shadows on the surface of the face as would promontories on the side of a mountain. The concave forms are like valleys and their shadows have few sharp edges as is typical of distant scenes.

They painted monuments to their sitters! I've been since on the lookout for that phenomenon in contemporary paintings and see it here to your credit.

[Peggy Baumgaertner]

Thank you Alicia, Linda and Steven,

As I work alone in the studio, I begin to appreciate how fulfilling it is when the painting is finally unveiled, and others whom you trust and admire, like it as well.

Steven, you can steal from me anytime. Heaven knows I've "borrowed" enough from other paintings in my day.

[Peggy Baumgaertner]

They painted monuments to their sitters! I've been since on the lookout for that phenomenon on contemporary paintings and see it here to your credit.

Deladier,

Thank you for your generous observations on my portrait. I am humbled by your words.

My heroes are also Hals, Van Dyke, Rembrandt, as well as the Russians, Kramskoi and Repin.

The most incredible aspect of Kramskoi's paintings were his exquisite conservation of composition. There was never anything that could be added in his portraits to make them stronger, and nothing that could be removed without making the painting weaker. He stunned me with his ability to have the composition be just a standing figure, and still make you cry.

I noticed a few years back that a lot of contemporary corporate portraits have a lot of stuff in them, chairs, plants, books. When I observed these Kramskoi portraits, as well as many of the Sargent male portraits, I was knocked out by the dual challenges of making the composition work when it is so simple, and putting 100% of the strength and attention towards the subject. Make him massive, solid, powerful ... in your words....monumental!

The most magnificent line I have ever seen is the silhouette on a 3/4 male portrait of Ivan Shishkin by Kramskoi. (I'll see if I can find it and post it.) When I saw that line, I knew I had to learn from Kramskoi, and started a ten year study of his work. (This is where I found out about sauce.) These observations you have made about the portraits at the museum are the templates I have also used to develop my portraits. You have described what I am after in my portraits.

As a continuation to the comments made on your Max thread, when you make the connection that you can also do what was done in the paintings of Bouguereau, Hals, and Sargent...that they live on and are there to teach you from their own work, your education is only limited to the amount of time you take to study.

Peggy

[Michele Rushworth]

Peggy, thank you for mentioning the work of Kramskoi. I just spent the last hour or so looking at his work on the web, since I had never heard of him before. His portraits of men are nothing short of riveting! I can see lots of similarities between your work and his.

[Michele Rushworth]

Here's the three quarter of Ivan Shishkin by Kramskoi that Peggy was talking about.

[Michele Rushworth]

And another Kramskoy portrait, entitled "Woodsman". This one stopped me in my tracks.

[Peter J. Fasi]

Peggy,

Being Maltese myself, I was particularly interested in this post.

It is, as always, exemplary.

Did you by any chance get the name of the third medal. Could you identify which is which?

[Chris Saper]

Administrator's note: The images Michele has posted of Kramskoy's work have been duplicated, in "Artists of the Past" located here: http://forum.portraitartist.com/show...&threadid=2128

Please direct your Kramskoy-related comments to that area, so that this thread can remain focused on Peggy's painting, "The Consulate of Malta".