A camera takes a photo of an instance by capturing the light and recording it onto a film. The instance will be captured with accuracy to every specific detail. An artist, however, cannot do the same. A portrait takes a great deal of time and effort to complete. This gives artist the freedom to impose “their reality on the picture”, as stated in the essay “Every Portrait Tells a Lie” by Debra Bremer. The portrait is painted with the subjective feelings of the artist. If the artist sees the subject he’s painting as sad, the artist will paint in minor details that makes the subject look sad and gloomy. But the subject might not be sad, the subject might just be tired. This is how portrait tells a lie. It is a lie that the artist tell based on his “subjective and contingent”. A portrait tells a story from a bystander’s, or artist’s, point of view.
I also feel that portraits contain an artist’s own emotion. If the artist is happy, they might choose a more colorful and light color palette, which would make the subject seems happy too. Regardless of what the subject actually feels himself/herself.
In “How John Singer Sargent Made a Scene” by Sarah Churchwell, she mentioned “it was Sargent, whether we know it or not, who helped show us what it [modern era] would look like.” The best example of how Sargent did this is through the painting Madame X (1884). The subject of the portrait is wearing a sweetheart neckline dress that reveals a big portion of skin. The dress is held up with two thin and fragile string of beads. If any closet malfunction were to happen, the dress may have fallen off the madame. Sargent received a great deal of criticism for this portrait. M
any criticized the “shockingly wanton shoulder strap allowed to fall suggestively loose” and the “powder-blue pallor of her skin”.In the late nineteenth century, women wore high necklines and showed very little of their skin. Madame X went against the social norm and violated the dressing code of the late 19th century. However, in this day and age, it is not a surprise to see a girl dress like Madame X to attend a party. Through his portrait, Sargent helped us see the modern era.
Your review of how a camera and pictures were created is very interesting. A portrait is often a lie that the painter view and creates based on his/her own ideas. You make a point of how one of John’s most well known works, Madam X, was ahead of its time and therefore received a lot of negative comments on it. I agree with you that if created later on, Madam X may not have been as harshly criticized but also may not have gotten as famous as it did.
I never realized that the artists own current emotions can affect their artwork. I simply believed the subjectivity of portraiture to arise from a difference of perception but you noted that it can happen when an artist feels sad or happy. Simple changes in a painter’s mood can totally alter the colors or message they are trying to convey. This makes me look at portraits in a new and exciting way.
I found your connection of an artist vs a photographer interesting… I agree that an artist (when drawing a piece of art) can allow the artist the freedom to impose “their reality on the picture”. But I feel that there really isn’t a distinction between a portrait being a lie and a photo being a lie (sort of like what Brehmer was suggesting about the Christmas photo in her essay). Even though a photo can capture a moment with great accuracy, it still does not mean that the photographer wasn’t manipulating the scene before snapping the photo, by saying (for example) “Smile!” I think that was just something interesting to note!