National Portrait Gallery

National Portrait Gallery

After a wonderful in-class exercise with label-writing a field trip to the National Portrait Gallery was in perfect order.  The fact that NPG prioritizes the sitter before the artist on their labels is something that I had never given any thought to previously. It would seem to make sense however. The art they exhibit is more about the sitter than it is about the artist. Although the artist is extremely important, unless the sitter is deemed extraordinarily important or it is a major masterpiece that is a revered part of the canon, it seems that very rarely is the sitter shown very much attention at all. Almost as though they were a prop, a throwaway, an add-on or a bonus. 

140 is the magic number

Enough words to make the point plain, to flesh out the concepts and move on.  Much like a more fleshed out but carefully contrived more scholarly Twitter. I believe that with guidelines such as these in mind, I would be able to hone in on becoming more succinct with my writing. It is something I know I should definitely focus on.

Bill & Melinda Gates: The Billionaires Next Door

The amount of time spent deconstructing the newest addition to NPG’s collection was also very insightful. Bill and Melinda Gates’ appeal to be more like everybody else despite their billions and billions of dollars. It’s refreshing albeit a bit unrealistic, aside from the fact that their portrait is impressive in technique but approachable in its outcome. Upon first glance I certainly thought that the portrait was a painted over digital print on canvas. I can only compare the detail and intensity to the portraits of Simmie Knox, a portraitist who is based, here in the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area has painted several Presidents, Dignitaries, university presidents and historians among others. http://www.simmieknox.com/official.htm

Mary Cassatt and Immortalization

The portrait on display of Mary Cassatt by Edgar Degas is troubling. Troubling because if I were Cassatt I would have sat a little more erect, made myself a bit more presentable and would have insisted on my  friend painting me not as I really was, but as I wanted to be portrayed for years to come. I guess that brings to the fore, the concept of immortalization. Self-promoting or sustaining vanity and perhaps foresight. Perhaps it is naïve of me to think that everything should be beautiful, but when it comes to how I want to be remembered, I certainly don’t want to be remembered as slump shouldered or run-down. I may feel that way, but I certainly don’t want to be remembered that way. Perhaps Cassatt really did think better of it after the fact, she forbade Degas to sell the painting to an American collector.

All in all, it was a wonderfully enlightening afternoon, I enjoyed myself immensely.