- Portraits fascinate us. Their appeal extends far beyond mere interest in the subject. We know-on an intuitive level-that by looking at a good portrait, the artist's vision may help us discover more of ourselves reflected in another's face.
Regardless of theme, craftmanship, or style, the universal value of a portrait painting depends on what it communicates about another human being. Once stripped of any added values dictated by its history, the current artistic trend, and its genealogical and sentimental interest, the artist's depth of insight into the subject's nature is the most important factor in determining a portrait's intrinsic artistic merit and ultimate worth.
The Four Levels of A Portrait's Depth
A portrait's depth may be classified according to four levels of perception:
The snapshot portrait.
The social persona.
The character.
The inner essence.
These four levels of insight usually result in four different types of portraits. The more depth a painter captures on canvas, the more fascinating the portrait becomes.
The Snapshot Portrait
Snapshot portraits focus on the subject's reaction to the moment. They are straightforward, journalistic. In this type of portrait, the subject conveys only a single emotion. These paintings engage our attention only briefly. Their meaning becomes exhausted soon after their subject matter-a child smiling at the viewer with a gap-toothed grim, the bride and groom at the altar, a seductive beauty with half-closed eyelids and a self-contained smile, a teenage boy at his graduation handshake. However, unless we haveemotional links with the portrait's subject, these images quickly loose their appeal.
Snapshot portraits are rarely a theme worthy of a fine art painting. Unfortunately, many contemporary portrait artists are satisfied with simply copying snapshot photographs, even to the extreme inclusion of the classic snapshot lighting-that is, a frontal flash that flattens all forms and washes away any color nuances.
The Social Persona Portrait
The word "persona" derives from the Greek, meaning "mask." Social persona portraits are meant to portray the social mask a person wears. Most of these portraits are intended to display professional or social status. In the social portraits of previous centuries, prominent men looked powerful and arrogant, while the women appeared blasé or enigmatic. In our times portrait sitters frequently display the cliché "friendly smile."
These portraits can include uniforms, insignias, professional instruments, jewelry, and other status symbols such as sweeping staircases with marble balustrades, or elegantly decorated surroundings. The subjects are often lighted in Hollywood fashion, with a spotlight focused on the hair to create a shiny, healthy look.
Social-persona portraits are acceptable in corporate, traditionally high-brow, military, or political environments; but unless those portrayed become famous historic figures, the artwork rarely turns out to be considered of museum quality.
The Character Portrait
In a character portrait the artist always emphasizes the subject's unique traits. The painter tries to capture a particular expression, gesture, and body posture that summarizes the subject's psychology. By subtly exaggerating the most prominent features of the subject, the successful artist may achieve an image often more representative of the subject's character than even the subject itself.
A good character portrait may give you access to the subject's private world. In contrast, an inner essence portrait can allow you access to the universe through another person's doorway.
The Inner Essence Portrait
In an inner essence portrait, the visual clues created by the pigments on canvas can miraculously awaken you to another level of awareness which helps you become sensitive and responsive to the portrayed subject, as well as to your own collective essence. This phenomenon happens at a deep level because we all resonate to a frequency of "humaness" or a basic nucleus of being we share with all other humans. The best portraits can awaken that core within you; thus, they become keys to understanding and appreciating your own essence.
When responding to an inner essence portrait, at first you will a general sense of the person represented in the portrait. Then, something will pull you even deeper. Sometimes, if you are truly sensitive, your body will shiver, or you will get goose-bumps. You will know you are being called to humanity's heart when ineffable feelings wash over you, and you wonder at the miracle of being alive in a universe full of such mysteries. By glimpsing the spirit in the portrait's eyes, you will inevitably ponder on the reason for your own existence, your mission, individually and as a species, in the greater Circle of Life. This wider perspective will make you vulnerable and reverential, yet also fully alive and richer in consciousness. As with a spiritual revelation, it may culminate in a state of peace and inner fulfillment as your egocentric view temporarily is replaced by your expanded awareness of this life-wave of Creation.
Very few portraits actually elicit an awareness of the inner essence. All depends on the artist's intuitional attunement, the subject's spiritual, and of course, the viewer's sensitivity.
Artists in touch with this transpersonal dimension may reveal a glimpse of its vastness in their creations. Many do not have the necessary intuition, or if they do, they surrender to their client's more superficial demands. For example, master portrait painters, such as Titian, Velazquez, Franz Halls, and John Singer Sargent, created masterpieces in social-persona and character portraits, but seldom achieved deeper insight. DaVinci, Vermeer, and Rembrandt, on the other hand, consistently painted transpersonal portraits. Inner-essence portraiture does not depend on style; in fact, Renoir and Mary Cassat painted wonderful inner-essence portraits in their Impressionist style.
Subjects possessing inner peace, who are able to relax and forget about themselves, help create the inner-essence portrait. Nevertheless, a good artist must know how to look beyond the subject's superficial persona and perceive the greatest possible depth and transcendence to manifest it on canvas.
Unfortunately, most people appreciate portraits according to their rendering, ornamentation, color scheme, or the subject's happy expression. An inner essence portrait may go beyond their level of understanding. However, artists should commit to expressing their deepest insights to expand the horizons of consciousness of the society in which they live in, even if their task becomes confrontational at times.
There are no formulas for inner-essence portraits. Success ultimately depends on blending the mysteries of art and spirit. Regardless, the artist may facilitate the viewer's perception of this essence by removing the superficial and directing the eye to what really matters.
Artists may try to achieve the timeless mood appropriate to metaphysical insight in the following ways:
Asking the sitter to pose in classic attire. Women and children look timeless when draped in fine fabrics, or in a simple robe. All this will help eschew current fashion trends that may call attention to themselves and eventually dated after a few years;
Setting the subject against a non-descriptive background to avoid objects or scenery, which can divert attention from the subject's expression.
Choosing portrait compositions based on the circle, the triangle, and the cross subtly to convey an archetypal feeling to the work. Compositions based on diagonals or curves suggesting rhythm and action may destroy the feeling of the eternal prevalent in most inner-essence portraits.
The subject's expression, however, will always be the most important element. The expression should be natural always, and should communicate vulnerability, innocence, or an indescribable kaleidoscope of feelings. The correct expression may appear quite unexpectedly in a contemplative gaze, as a child when immersed in exploring an insect, or as a woman when hand-sewing, or as an elder when lost in past memories.
Unfortunately, since we are usually guarded in our expression, the pose and look exposing such inner essence is often quite brief. The artist must constantly be looking for this moment. Such inner essence may even reveal itself between poses, for example, in conversation during a five-minute break. A truly committed artist will at this moment call out: "Stop! Don't move! I must start all over".
Artists will find inspiration for painting inner essence portraits if they want to express their own awe for creation. Ideally, this artist should have a deep inner life and be committed to the search for his/her own inner essence. To find his/her own inner essence, the artist needs to achieve a superior perspective, and to balance his/her consciousness over the abyss that separates the human from the divine, uncertain before this immensity of Life, vulnerable to these cosmic forces.
Finally, when the time is ready, the gates to artistic inspiration will open. The artist then will recognize the arrival of the creative spirit by his/her feelings of reverential awe, tenderness, inner trepidation, and obsession with the work punctuated by sporadic periods of rapture. This is how masterpieces are created.