 |
| Download this image |
Likenesses not necessarily do good portraits make. Often, a lifecast of a person's face will not resemble him. Brunettes will not look as well in sculpture as blondes, for black eyes and hair do not look black in sculpture.
If you are an artist and commissioned to make a portrait of a person on the condition that no words will be exchanged between the two of you for as long as it takes to make it perfect; then you are to make another portrait of the same person being permitted to be together for a solid week, eating, discussing, quarreling, and laughing, so you can make another judgement of the sitter while painting and both pieces turn out identical… you are a worthless artist. For you absolutely cannot paint the portraits identical, once you have learned the man sitting in front of you and know that he murdered seven people or saved seven from a band of Communist killers.
We stood in front of the store where this man sold any objects to the class of people who are so conscious of being the personification of Prosaicism that they often exclaim that they love Culture and things like that! There had been an accident outside the store and people gathered quickly to see what had happened. A customer had banged his bead into a board that was dangerously placed head-high. I proposed that the board was useless and should be removed. But the owner insisted that it should remain; His wife grudgingly explained that the man had placed the board there purposely, so that when people bumped their heads on it, he could roar with hysteric laughter.
On another occasion, a stranger entered the store asking directions. My model for this portrait told the man that there were two paths to follow, a short walk or a long walk, that the longer walk was much more scenic and easier to travel. The visitor thanked him and left. My humorous sitter then offered his reason for advising the stranger to take the longer route. In that section of the country there were many poison oak plants, and perhaps the foolish inquisitor would get his hands and face covered with a rash. For some reason my model had a grudge against Humanity, and not being a Commissar in Russia, he had found his personal way to assuage his craving to inflict suffering.
While I was drawing him before me, he became bored and forgot that he was not alone, falling into his pit of obsessive interests. He did not know how he looked for there was no mirror to reveal the tightening of his tin-can lips, edged like a steel trap. I dressed him into the deceptive vestment of a monk while growing Pan's horns in order to hint at a disguised potential sadist.
On seeing that I had caught him in this secular escapade, he wished to buy the portrait from me, but the drawing was worth more than his money.