What is a portrait good for, unless it shows just how the subject was seen by the painter? In the old days before photography came in a sitter had a perfect right to say to the artist: "Paint me just as I am." Now if he wishes absolute fidelity he can go to the photographer and get it.
Aubrey BeardsleyRelated topics
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Sloan [American colleague artist who started his art by making etchings, c. 1920] not having been abroad [in contrary to Hopper himself], has seen these things with a truer and fresher eye than most... The hard early training has given to Sloan a facility and a power of invention that the pure painter seldom achieves.
Edward Hopper
I suppose there is something appealing about a word that everyone uses with absolute confidence but on whose exact meaning no two people can agree. The word that I'm thinking of right now is genre, one of those French words, like crêpe, that no one can pronounce both correctly and without sounding pretentious.
Michael Chabon