Sunday Art Dialogue: The Truth of a Face

From flattery to honesty, from likeness to emotion

When we look at a portrait, what are we really looking at? The face of another person — or an artist's interpretation of who that person is?

JOSHUA REYNOLDS — THE ART OF PRESENTATION

In the eighteenth century, Sir Joshua Reynolds was one of Britain's most celebrated portrait painters. His sitters were often presented with elegance, dignity and authority. Flattery was part of the tradition, but so was ambition. The portrait became a form of social theatre, transforming the sitter into a public figure.

JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER — THE POWER OF RESTRAINT

With Whistler, we encounter a very different kind of portrait. His famous Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, better known as Whistler's Mother, presents a woman seated in profile, surrounded by a restrained arrangement of tones and shapes. There is no elaborate setting, no theatrical gesture, no obvious attempt to impress us. Whistler seems to ask us to look at the relationship between figure, space, colour and composition, rather than simply at the sitter's personality.

PABLO PICASSO — BREAKING THE FACE APART

Picasso challenges our assumptions about what a portrait should look like.

Why must a face be represented from a single viewpoint? Why must its features remain in their familiar places? Picasso's portraits, particularly those influenced by Cubism, can fracture and rearrange the face, presenting different viewpoints simultaneously.

ALICE NEEL — THE HUMAN BEING, UNGUARDED

Alice Neel offers another kind of honesty. Her portraits are direct, intimate and often disarmingly frank.

She painted friends, neighbours, intellectuals, activists, children and people from many different walks of life. She was interested in individuality rather than conventional beauty or social prestige.

QUESTION...

If you were to commission your own portrait, would you want to look beautiful, to look as others recognise you, or to have something revealed about yourself that you had never quite seen before?