Stillness conveys power…
It’s a little trick known well by every CEO and leader-type that invites you into their office. They sit at their desks, waiting for you to approach: they remain still while you must move in order to enter into conversation. It may seem a small gesture, but it is more effective than we’d like to believe.
Similarly, a still-looking portrait has a formal and authoritative quality. This comes, in part, from referencing the long tradition in portraiture of stiff but commanding images of influential white men, but also from the simple social technique described above. It’s implied that a truly powerful person does not have to lift a finger to prove her-his strength.
This has, of course, led to countless austere, staid, and, to my eye, boring representations of people. Even today, individuals still want that “formal” or “traditional” look to their painted portraits, something which I’ve never understood.
The more self-assured executive—the one who doesn’t need to use this kind of trick to feel confident—will stand to greet a guest. And it’s just that kind of dynamism I like to find in my work: the kind that doesn’t need to be stilled to convey its inherent worth. I think that each person’s vitality is commanding enough to merit a portrait.
Gwenn Seemel
Papa
2004
acrylic on canvas
33 x 27 inches
A painting is always going to be still…it’s in the nature of a painted image! That said, a portrait can be painted in a more or less movemented manner. The dynamism of the finished piece might not have that solid, stolid power thing going, but there’s a forceful strength to undeniable life. Even in 2004, I was looking for this in my brushwork.
Frans Hals’ The Lute Player circa 1620
Part of the reason for the long tradition of still portraits is that few artists managed to—or even tried to—capture liveliness before the camera (and Modernism) changed ideas about what was appropriate or possible in an image. The artists who did paint in a dynamic manner were known for the life-like quality which they lent their sitters. Frans Hals, a Dutch artist of the 17th century was one such painter. His lively brushstrokes opened up a whole new world in expression, one which was still marveled at two hundred and some years later by the likes of Vincent Van Gogh—and almost four hundred years later by me!
Gwenn Seemel
Paula
2005
acrylic on canvas
19 x 13 inches
This painting is probably as far as I ever went in Hals’ direction. After it, I decided that there was something unsettling about the forever-breath of a person caught in an expressions like this one. While it delights for a time, I think it’s hard to live with an image that catches such a fleeting moment. I will, on occasion, paint portraits like this one of Paula if I feel that the normally brief expression which I am committing to canvas is so true to the subject, but, for the most part, I find slightly more relaxed examples of vitality from which to work.
RELATED ARTICLES:
- Portraiture’s formal tradition
- Eye like you.
- Your eyes were watching you.
CATEGORIES: - Philosophy - Portraiture -
