| Can a portrait ever be honest? I think not. It can portray honestly what the person looks like, or it can portray something inside. The more such innermost depths are explored, the more the portrait tells a half truth. But then, what is really more interesting: truth, or "just another pretty face"? | ||
| Already we are being set up. It is a
rainy day, near the Sorbonne in Paris. There is a warm breeze. What could be more Romantic? Yet the overcast lighting flattens the image, removing clues. We are forced to see the young man two-dimensionally, like type on a page, and thus also forced to rely on expression alone. |
Is such sadness warranted, and is it wistful longing,or heartbreak? |
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| Did she just finish playing a concert? Or is she waiting to go on? Again, eyes focus out of the frame, on some unseen goal. A goal which illumines with the harsh reality of point-source lighting. | 
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Even if we double the lighting sources, and give the
model something tangible to focus on, the viewer is still being
manipulated. The image reeks of old world values, warmth, humanity . . .
Manipulate the viewer (or listener!) and you are well on the way to being a Romantic artist. |
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| Ultimately it is the "story"
picture that is deemed the most Romantic, in that it forces us to
externalize our feelings, thoughts, dreams, fantasies even. This is the antithesis of portraiture Figures are reduced to mere models - Manequins - simulacra of humanity. |
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| A dissolute pose, a ring, and dead carnations are all
stuff of many stock Romantic images. It matters not. We are still forced to answer, if even for ourselves, a question. . . |
 Why is the other figure laughing? |
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| To Be Continued . . . | ||
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