. Portrait . Painting by Lawrence Portrait of an Old Lady GALLERY, LONDON demand for the latter. Only the wealthy could indulgein such luxury. For that reason the painter looked atit as a subordinate branch of his art. His mind wasoccupied with so many more elaborate schemes of com-position, that whenever he had a call to paint a portrait,he simply dashed it off, just trying to get the likenessin as lifelike a manner as possible. And thus the ordinary bust portrait which showsnothing but the head and bust, not even the hands inmost cases, became his vehicle of expression. It wasthe most logica
. Portrait . Painting by Lawrence Portrait of an Old Lady GALLERY, LONDON demand for the latter. Only the wealthy could indulgein such luxury. For that reason the painter looked atit as a subordinate branch of his art. His mind wasoccupied with so many more elaborate schemes of com-position, that whenever he had a call to paint a portrait,he simply dashed it off, just trying to get the likenessin as lifelike a manner as possible. And thus the ordinary bust portrait which showsnothing but the head and bust, not even the hands inmost cases, became his vehicle of expression. It wasthe most logical solution. If a person wants his por- To v t rati,. trait, he reasoned, he wants a record of his face, atruthful representation of the structure of the head, thefeatures and the facial expression. So the way to do this is to place the headin favorable lighting and toreproduce itfaithfully. Em-bellishments are not neces-sary. Raphael, Titian,VeroneseVelasquez, Rem-brandt, all have paintedportraits in that unpreten-tious manner, and one canstate without exaggeratingthat seventy-five per cent,of all portraits of thatperiod were executed inthat manner. The simple bust portraitis the oldest and most clas-sical form of far as it goes, it can not be improved upon. Itaccomplishes the task that is demanded of it. Ofcourse, if nothing else butbust portraits were made,the monotony of their ap-pearance would tire thebeholder, one would longfor more variety. But thatdoes not change the intrin-sic value of the method. Now, judge for portrait by Lawrenceis painted in the manner ofthe old masters. Its sim-plicity is convinc
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidportrait519131914ansc
