Wednesday, March 21, 2012

In the two previous posts we discussed painting physical and psychological portraits of our subject matter and of the light falling on it. Now we must consider a third portrait, the space that our subject occupies. As a simple example of how space affects a painting let's consider a couple of well known masterpieces. Imagine the Mona Lisa without a landscape behind her. If she were portrayed with the same pose and clothing, the same enigmatic smile, but in front of a blank wall, how different the painting would be. Or perhaps Whistler's Mother seen rocking, not in her gray room, but on her front porch or in her garden. Only the space would be different but now we would have a new picture of her. Let's go back to studio 7 at the League where the classroom portrait shown here was painted. There is space between the portrait and the background, in this case a very shallow space. We can't see or feel the space yet we know it exists and we must paint it. If we fail to paint that space our figure will look as if she were glued to the wall. The quality, a portrait, of the space must be expressed, if it is dry or misty, shallow or vast, crisp or gloomy. Now our painting has an excellent chance to succeed, we are painting everything we see, physical and psychological portraits of our subject, the light that falls on that subject and the space it occupies.....