QUOTES

The following quotes are compiled from the “Robert Genn's Twice Weekly Letter”, a free digital dissertation on art that is shared with the world via the Internet (highly recommended for those interested in art!).

“Painting someone's portrait is, of course, an impossible task. What an absurd idea to try and distill a human being, the most complex organism on the planet, into flicks, washes, and blobs of paint on a two-dimensional surface”. (David Cobley)

“A portrait, to be a work of art, neither must nor may resemble the sitter... one must paint its atmosphere.” (Umberto Boccioni)

“Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.” (Samuel Butler)

“When I painted his portrait and offered it to him, he glanced at the canvas, then, looking at himself in the mirror, thought a moment and said: Well, no! Keep it!” (Marc Chagall)

“I have painted many portraits of people and I have painted many portraits of trees. Trees are more tranquil to work with, never demanding, never complaining their portrait doesn't look right”. (Cosbie)

“A good form strikes all eyes pleasantly, long before they have any science on the subject; and a beautiful face sets twenty hearts in palpitation, prior to all consideration of the mechanical proportions of the features and head”. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

“You know, if one paints someone's portrait, one should not know him if possible”. (Otto Dix)

“I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the subject grow to look like his portrait”. (Salvador Dali)

“One is never satisfied with the portrait of a person that one knows”. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

“I want to paint men and women with that something of the external which the halo used to symbolize, and which we now seek to give by the actual radiance and vibrancy of our colorings”. (Vincent Van Gogh)

“What a joy it is to capture the likeness of another human being. It has been said that the eyes are the window through which we glimpse the soul. That's my favorite thing to paint – souls! “(Ann Manry Kenyon)

“There's no symmetry in nature. One eye is never exactly the same as the other. There's always a difference. We all have a more or less crooked nose and an irregular mouth”. (Edouard Manet)

“Portrait painting is difficult. There are no short cuts... Every human being encompasses a whole world within himself. The artist must understand this”. (Martha Orozco)

“If faces were not alike, we could not distinguish men from beasts; if they were not different, we could not tell one man from another”. (Michel de Montaigne)

“The ultimate achievement in portraiture is to produce a great painting that happens to be a portrait; a piece of art that would be desirable to someone who is not even acquainted with the subject”. (L. Steven Moppert)

The quotes resonate the difficult task of doing a portrait from life, not even factoring in a short work time. Sometimes we expect too much and other times we are extremely pleased with the results. It's a little like fishing, or target shooting, or receiving Christmas gifts; a surprise. After all, the portraits are gifts from the Mendocino Portrait Guild. Thank you brave sitters for modeling.

Don Koubek