I'm touching on 4 painters in this post, about a century apart, all of whom painted a lot of portraits.
Rembrandt always gave it his best, even when commissioned to paint, for instance, a pair of portraits of a couple to flank a fireplace, a merchant, perhaps, married to a potato. The artist's attitude seemed to be: she's a person and her daddy loves her.
In contrast here is a sitter of his own choosing who struck a deep chord in the artist.
Goya was not so charitable. When obligated to paint someone which to him was not of interest, he nevertheless had to produce a passable portrait. Often his solution was to paint an innocuous doll face and dazzle the client with a beautifully rendered costume, with fine stuffs, bows and lace or ribbons and medals and gold braid.
Who could doubt that this woman interested him?
Sargent appears to have been pretty even handed when setting out to portray people of more or less interest to him. The two examples I have picked don't contrast all that much with one another. However, I would guess that all of these 4 artists would choose to paint the lady in black if they had to choose. I would.
I went carefully through about 250 of Hockney's portraits looking for an empty-headed dip, or a flatulent pseudo-intellectual, or a commonplace dullard or a blank. No such thing. He is careful; they all have the spark.
Rembrandt always gave it his best, even when commissioned to paint, for instance, a pair of portraits of a couple to flank a fireplace, a merchant, perhaps, married to a potato. The artist's attitude seemed to be: she's a person and her daddy loves her.
In contrast here is a sitter of his own choosing who struck a deep chord in the artist.
Goya was not so charitable. When obligated to paint someone which to him was not of interest, he nevertheless had to produce a passable portrait. Often his solution was to paint an innocuous doll face and dazzle the client with a beautifully rendered costume, with fine stuffs, bows and lace or ribbons and medals and gold braid.
Who could doubt that this woman interested him?
Sargent appears to have been pretty even handed when setting out to portray people of more or less interest to him. The two examples I have picked don't contrast all that much with one another. However, I would guess that all of these 4 artists would choose to paint the lady in black if they had to choose. I would.
I went carefully through about 250 of Hockney's portraits looking for an empty-headed dip, or a flatulent pseudo-intellectual, or a commonplace dullard or a blank. No such thing. He is careful; they all have the spark.
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