On Portraits

This post is inspired by my most recent visit to the AGO which has a gallery devoted to the portraits of Rembrandt on at the moment. I'm a member and like to visit a few spaces at a time rather than see the whole building in one go. In this space is an audio visual display that allows you to click on the faces of people who know a thing or two about the faces on display. A woman discusses how a portrait is different from a photograph.

A portrait differs because a person has to settle, or some such reason. It is the person as they are. Relaxed, that they are more themselves somehow than in a photograph. Whereas the still image catches a single moment, they looked that way for a second and that is all you get to see, a seconds worth of character.

So now I have ideas of portraiture floating in my head. I bought a book called "The Imaginary Portraits of George Condo" and enjoyed them, found them to be similar to how I tend to use figures - places to insert posture and action rather than specific identity.

This is probably why I keep thinking about that gallery in the AGO. I had been looking at identifiable people. The person speaking in the display said most of the people we encounter are like photographs, we look at them briefly and we think we know where they fit, we think we understand. The exhibit serves as a reminder of the mysteries of humanity, it allows the opportunity of inspection, to be dumbfounded, to wonder what they were thinking.