Compare and contrast

Sylvia - you don't need to apologize, we all know you have problems that are no fault of yours. I was interested by your reaction - when you say "the first one", you mean the portrait of Peter?  That's a telling indication of different points of view on paintings, isn't it?  When I first saw that portrait - and I began to think I was alone in this! - I did like the freshness of the colour and approach to the figure; it helped of course that I recognized its subject from having actually met him (he had a handshake like a dead haddock, by the way, but maybe he was careful of my arthritis - it was a problem even all those many years ago; or maybe he just didn't normally shake hands whereas I, a keen poitico, usually did).   I don't think I really noticed the background - when I did, as others had indicated their dislike of it, I saw their point.  And the floating chair - I hadn't particularly clocked that, either.  When I did, and put that and the background together, I began to get a bit disappointed with my first reaction. But then - you saw in it what I believe I saw in it, and restored my faith - I think it captures Peter in - to some degree - the same way that Graham Sutherland caught W Somerset Maugham (and though he hated it, Winston Churchill).  I'm not comparing the three in any other way than that I think the artist got the character - clearly, Sutherland was a highly proficient artist; whether Winnie and Clemmie appreciated him or not... Back to Jonathan Yeo - I suppose we move on, must change, can't keep on doing the same thing in painting after painting - but in my (not very humble) opinion, he's taken the path he might better have left less travelled.   Still - I remember that when Sutherland painted Somerset Maugham, one critic said he'd made him look "like an ancient Chinese Mandarin" - that's the thing about opinions: we've all got one - or half a dozen, often contradicting each other if you're an art critic.  I thought it a masterpiece, moving on from the staid, stuffy, conservative academic approach so often used for portraits of the great and the good; perhaps Yeo would do well to study him again (again, because every portrait painter must have been influenced by him). So - he said, winding, eventually, to a halt: here's another theme for Dixie - portraits; of celebrities, politicians, writers, other painters; I can think of at least a dozen portraits of recent years (i.e., in my lifetime) that I've admired.  But the great danger here is that Dixie will ask me to do it.... slinks away furtively - it wasn't me, and anyway, I was wearing a mask....