Painters Online Logo

Login/register

Studio

Portrait

Welcome to the forum.

Here you can discuss all things art with like-minded artists, join regular painting challenges, ask questions, buy and sell art materials and much more.

Make sure you sign in or register to join the discussions.

Hang on Studio Wall
Author
Message
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, NAPA

  • Prestige User
  • Reputation: 20438
  • Last active:
  • Posts: 7167
Posted
Without identifying it - what do you say about a portrait on the gallery that's based on an historical figure, but looks ..... like someone else entirely?  What can one say?  Well painted, up to a point, but - a mile away from any representation of the person portrayed, while betraying an uncomfortable closeness to someone else entirely?   I think one ignores it; because to do otherwise would offend; but ... it looks nothing like its subject from the neck up.  Oh dear.  So much dedicated work - so very far away.  I can't even say don't base your portraits on photographs, because something else happened here (and the subject is no longer with us).  I think what did happen was that the painter imposed upon his subject a political position he would never have held, in which case it was misrepresenting his subject, and fell too much in love with the iconic personality. I don't want to criticize him on the Gallery for that, but ........... I do think it was a big mistake; and something of a miscarriage of justice.  Or perhaps just an ill-judged portrait?  I don't know - it won't be hard to find the subject.

Sylvia Evans

  • Prestige User
  • Reputation: 15309
  • Last active:
  • Posts: 4135
Posted
I had just been looking at it before I read your post Robert.  Clemmie certainly would not like it at all it would probably have got the same treatment as one of its predecessors had. I have mentally added an orange wig.... 
IMG_8857

Marjorie Firth

  • Prestige User
  • Reputation: 6395
  • Last active:
  • Posts: 1792
Posted
The problem with painting a "famous person" is that if it's "out" by the slightest bit then it's glaringly obvious...I've seen a fair few.
profile

Tony Auffret

  • Forum Expert
  • Last active:
  • Posts: 510
Posted
No it didn’t quite hit the mark - and a commissioned piece too - but we all have off days and even when I have finished a howler, I have still posted it.  Most people are too polite, but I have had some good feedback, which is surely what the gallery is about.
Moi 17

Linda Wilson

  • Prestige User
  • Reputation: 3427
  • Last active:
  • Posts: 1463
Posted
I think that it is in acrylic which is unforgiving for portraits.  The result is often rather graphic rather than artistic.
Moi 17

Linda Wilson

  • Prestige User
  • Reputation: 3427
  • Last active:
  • Posts: 1463
Posted
Working from other people's photos is usually a mistake, for copyright reasons.  Did the photographer or other copyright owner die over 50 years ago?  There a breach of copyright?  (Doesn't apply for American photographs as their  copyright laws are different and photographs are not covered,)

Alan Bickley

  • Prestige User
  • Reputation: 9110
  • Last active:
  • Posts: 3444
Posted
It is actually an oil painting. I see that she (Sam) was once a storyboard artist which may account for the reason that, as Linda says, and which I also picked up on, has a somewhat graphic quality about it. It’s not a style that excites me personally, but it does have some good qualities within it. I’ve seen a lot worse on here!

Peter Davison

  • Forum Expert
  • Last active:
  • Posts: 533
Posted
The subject notoriously destroyed a portrait (by Sutherland) he disapproved so perhaps as well he is no longer around!

Sylvia Evans

  • Prestige User
  • Reputation: 15309
  • Last active:
  • Posts: 4135
Posted
More to the point ,it actually does not look like him. I would think copyright isn’t an issue .its not a copy of the Sutherland painting that actually portrayed him warts and all hence the reason his  wife Clementine destroyed it . Copying anything is like Chinese whispers or the wearing of the ring in Lord of the rings it dilutes and alters .  So I’m not at all impressed.  More like Trump. Clementine—who worked very hard to preserve her husband's legacy both during his career and after his death—took the blame for the portrait going missing and claimed she burned it herself. In 1978, when Sutherland discovered the paintinghad been burned, he called it “without question an act of vandalism.”8 Nov 2016

Edited
by Sylvia Evans