On Painting Portraits

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 56, 28 May 1927, Page 19 (Supplement)

On Painting Portraits

HE art of presenting a personality in pigment is one fraught with considerable d i ffl - culties. Portraits i @ may be divided into two classes: those that are commissioned, and those which the artist Paints for his personal delectation. Between these two groups stretches a *’ide gap in the painter’s mind. A commissioned-portrait may be a matter of personal conceit, or a desire on the part of the sitter’s family to preserve an historic record; or, again, there are portraits which are commissioned by some civic body or society which wishes to honour an outstanding member of their fraternity. So be it. The portrait is

arranged, the money is forthcom- - • . and artists, like other human e ings, have to live. CommissionedPortraits are the more difficult probem for, not only has the artist to precrve the integrity of his Art, but he also to please his sitter, his S - relations, or the civic body Aich is paying for the portrait.

(Written for THE SUN by J. CAM DUNCAN.)

At this point it may be pertinent to ask: “How much of his own personality should a painter put into his work?” The question is a difficult one to answer. Personality is not like the sand in the sugar, but is an inevitable quality and, in the mind of the artist, works unconsciously. In the character of a portrait-painter, as in every other individual who reaches success, personality is a sine qua non in achievement. But the personality of a painter is a matter fraught with grave dangers, for it is capable of over emphasis, or, rather, I should say, intrusion.

Here I would ask another question. "What makes for or mars the success of a portrait?” This is easier. Granting that the artist is a well-trained craftsman, and possessed of those aesthetic qualities essential to his profession, the most important factor in the production of a successful portrait is the sympathy between the artist and his sitter. By sympathy Ido not mean the ordinary feeling of liking, or complete and harmonious understanding, but rather that chord of mutual interest which creates an impulse between the worker and his subject.

Then, again, a successful portrait is not always a pleasing one: often quite the reverse. I remember several portraits by Augustus John which were pre-eminently successful: but I am equally certain that they were outrageously cruel. Truth is not always kind. As commissioned-portraits they would be rank failures and. I should imagine, quite unacceptable to the person or persons who had commissioned them. Take the second class: the portraits which an artist paints for his own pleasure. Here one finds the supreme expression of a portrait-painter’s work. Such sitters are chosen because they interest the artist and, into his presentation of the subject, he puts all the imagery of unhampered Art. He is not tied down to please his sitter, nor restrained to any set form of arrange

ment, but is able to paint with all the joy of freedom and This side of a portrait-painter’s life is his compensation in a profession that is exacting and often misjudged. Portrait-painting has a psychology of its own and, in estimating the achievements of the painters of our

present day, it is interesting to consider the factors which have led to

their individual success. The chief figure among modern por-trait-painters was John Singer Sargent. Sargent’s success was unique, in as much that he lived to see his portraits placed in the National Gallery on a plane with the works of the supreme masters —an honour of the highest and most singular significance.

Sargent was a poet in the medium of paint. But his portraits were not true likenesses. He used his sitters to his own purposes and transmuted them into figures of grace and beauty. That was the reason of his financial success, as a painter of women. His immortal success lies in the perfection of his technique. Another successful painter of women is Philip de Laszlo, an Austrian, who has painted more Royalties than any other living artist. Like Sargent, he exaggerated the grace and beauty of his sitters; but his technique falls fai short of the great American. It is too glib, too fluid and. at times, too pretty.

In a different category lies the work of Augustus John. Many of this painter’s portraits are crude, uncouth and raw: yet John is a great artist. Among the portrait-painters of the present day he is the greatest psychological painter living. Hence the cruelty of his work. Not only does John paint the outer crust of his subject, but, like an intensive vivisectionist, he flays the sitter and leaves his soul bare for the world to gaze upon. Also, John is possessed of a distorted sense of humour through which, in the exercise of his craft, he holds his subject (victim) up to the ridicule of the world. His portraits of Lloyd George, Herr Stresseman, Sir Herbert Barker, Lady Cynthia Asquith and many o|#ier I could mention are examples of this diabolic humour. Yet, I repeat, John is a great artist. His talent is in the van with the world’s greatest painters—Van Dyck, Reubens and, more particularly, El Greco —and, when the world has forgotten his sardonic qualities, it will judge his work at its true value.

The work of Sir William Orpen stands in a class by itself. He might, quite justifiably, be termed the apostle of light, for his handling of this ele* ment is extremely dexterous. Direct light, refracted light, the painting of a figure against the light, or a mixture of all these forms, are exercises which seem to appeal to him and, the more difficult the problem, the keener the zest in his task. But there is always a fly in the ointment, and the fly in Orpen’s painting Is the fact of trickery. It is too dexterous; his light ing a trifle spectacular; and the fidelity, too photographic. The finest expression of an artist's mind is compounded of truth and simplicity. Orpen is rarely simple. The subtlety and ironic wit of his Irish mind are plainly patent in the texture of his worls, and one senses that he paints many of his sitters with his tongue in his cheek. Of the younger men who have followed the profession of portrait-paint-ing, Stuart-Hill is one of the outsland ing figures. In estimating his work I cannot do better than quote the words of the celebrated art critic, Wilenski. “His pictures represent the latest example of the intelligent compromise which has been adopted throughout the history of the English school by artists when confronted with the problem of painting portraits of handsome, elegant people of the world. They are decoratively arranged in a way, and to an extent that makes them genuine pictures, and not merely figures thrown forward by a formless background from the frame: they are honest in technical execution, and they tell us only such things about the sitters as the sitters presumably would be glad for us to know." On this judgment the work of Stuart-Hill seems to bridge that difficult hiatus which lies between the artist and his subject. Then there are the popular portraitpainters; that group of artists who are guaranteed to give a reasonably good lithographic representation of their patrons. The list is a long one, and their names may be found in any recent number of “The Royal Academy Pictures.” They are honest craftsmen plying their craft to the best of their ability, but one cannot imagine them climbing into the niches in the Temple of Fame which are reserved for the Immortals. Rotorua.