A Thought on Portraits

Portions of two conversations:

--I just had my first car bomb...
--Did you explode?

and:

--Your painting doesn't look like me...
--It will.

The first is, of course, a text message exchange between my youngest daughter (who is, for the record, 21 years of age) and me.

The second is Gertrude Stein complaining to Picasso about what would eventually become one of his most famous paintings. It would, of course, be this:



Picasso's response is telling on a number of levels, but most significant because it brings me to my thought on portraits. Which, of course, is:

The idea is not to copy what people look like, but rather to capture what they look like.

Me? My preference is for my paintings to look like the subject's fraternal twin. The first entry I ever made on my now somewhat extended blog was entitled "Chuck Close Must Be Freaking Out" and featured my painting of him entitled "Close, But Not Quite." Which is the idea in a nutshell.

And which brings me to my rendering of the Sex Machine himself, Jim Cramer; here shown just prior to me scrawling the name of the painting across his forehead.



Wikipedia has this to offer:

Carbomb (also known as "Belfast carbomb" or "Irish carbomb") is a boilermaker made with stout (for example, Guinness), Irish cream (i.e. Bailey's) and Irish whiskey such as Jameson's or Tullamore Dew.

We're jumping around here a little bit. Have you had one? Can't recommend them, although my "Did you explode" was, if I do say so myself, positively first-rate.

Anyway, I think I've hit Jimbo on the head, so to speak. You might feel that his face is a bit thin compared to the actual guy, but that could be that you've never really gotten a clear shot of him. He jumps around alot on his show. But the sneer? And the eye on the right side of the painting? Both eyes, really! I think I've got him.

Also worth noting, from this viewer's perspective, is the flipped resemblance between Cramer as depicted and what is commonly referred to as the Droeshout Engraving? Drawing a blank? Perhaps this helps:



For the record, this might be a colorized version of the Droeshout Engraving. But you get the point. I think it's the nose. And/or the forehead. And this resemblance would, I suppose, encourage us to refer to Cramer as the "Bard of Buy and Sell"?

What's Avon going for right now? Probably not even a company.

Anyway, as a closing note, do you know what happens if you Google "Jeremiah+forehead" in their "images" section? You get this. Which brings us, of course, to the famous line from the bible about people's foreheads:

...and you had the forehead of a harlot - you refused to be ashamed
Jeremiah 3.3

Which sounds a little like a software update.

And now we really are jumping around.