Irish painter Sir John Lavery lamented in his memoirs that it is impossible to both capture a true likeness of a portrait subject and also please that subject.
The problem is compounded by the fact that most portraits are not commissioned by the subject, but rather by a relative or spouse, and their feelings must be taken into account, too.
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(Portraits are by John Lavery but not the one referred to in this story)
"The day at last arrived and with it the husband. Planting himself in front of the picture with both hands resting on a gold-headed cane, he maintained an ominous silence while his eyes roamed over the canvas."
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"At last, raising a hand, covering the figure, and concentrating on the head, he spoke. 'I pass the forehead and the eyes. I move my hand downwards: the nose the mouth the chin, them also I pass. I move my hand yet lower: what is this flat-chested modernity that I see? Where is the snowy amplitude of Her Ladyship? No, Sir John Lavery, that does not represent my wife.'"
"Her Ladyship stood by his chair almost in tears, saying, 'I will not have an eighth of an inch added.' I had tried to please both and, of course, had failed."
"Later, I wrote to His Lordship that I felt he was justified in his criticism, and that if he was still in the same mind I would, with his permission, cancel the commission, and that he should take back the very expensive and highly carved frame he had ordered. He accepted."
He painted another portrait over the canvas.
Quoted from The Life of a Painter by Sir John Lavery.
5 comments:
Ain't it the truth!!! I once did a small oil sketch of a man (a posthumous thing) and handed it off to his widow. She gladly accepted. However, in about two weeks, she was back . . . something was wrong with the nose. She stood beside me most of the afternoon while I "fixed the nose." It was a small painting, 12X16, so work was not on a grand scale . . . spots and dabs, really. At last, she yelped, "There, that's it!!" By looking closely, I could see that my new paint matched the pattern below. This is why I envy landscape painters.
Thank you for sharing this--it speaks to the balance needed for such work, and the business practices and situations that, I can say, were not ever taught in school. I would love to see more education in this area--or maybe it is there now. There was, understandably, more focus on techniques of making art in the classes I took, but art business-related issues were not.
This is such a real post. If I paint a portrait for someone who is alive they are their own worst critic and want the portrait to look like their 20 year old self on their best day. But the family wants it to look like them now, on a mediocre day. This post just makes me smile.
I feel so bad for him, it is a no win scenario.
Thank you so much for sharing such an awesome blog...
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