Portraits Quotes - Page 20

• Did you ever see a portrait of a great man without perceiving strong traits of pain and anxiety?

  John Adams

  Strong, Pain, Men

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1856). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.217

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• Few persons who have ever sat for a portrait can have felt anything but inferior while the process is going on.

  Anthony Powell

  Process, Sat, Persons

  Anthony Powell (2005). “Some Poets, Artists & 'A Reference for Mellors'”, p.251, Timewell Press

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• A Gustave Courbet portrait of a trout has more death in it than Rubens could get in a whole Crucifixion.

  Robert Hughes

  Trout, Rubens, Crucifixion

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• [In my writing] I know that I have made a caricature out of [others' academic] theories [but] I think that caricatures are frequently good portraits.

  Umberto Eco

  Writing, Thinking, Academic

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• I don't paint women, I paint pictures. . . What I am after above all is expression. If in a portrait I put eyes, a nose, a mouth, there isn't much use; on the contrary it paralyses the imagination of the spectator, and obliges us to see the person in a certain way.

  Henri Matisse

  Eye, Expression, Imagination

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• I think his portraits of Jackie, Liz, Marilyn, Mao, Elvis, Lenin - and objects like the soup cans, the dollar signs, the hammer and sickle, it's all about icons. Its all about what people worship in an irreligious or secular world. In terms of Andy's personality and Andy Warhol as a human being who I was very close to, I still feel kind of sorry for him on a personal level. I mean, he was the ultimate example of great success wrapped around inner turmoil and emotional pain.

  Bob Colacello

  Sorry, Pain, Mean

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• There are a lot of period movies where they say, 'This is a portrait of Lady Whatever.' And it's done in like a 1950s or 60s style.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Style, Done, Periods

  Source: collider.com

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• When I first came to America there still was Look Magazine and LIFE Magazine, and the photography in those magazines was amazing to look at. They had the best portraits, and their news photography.

  Vilmos Zsigmond

  Photography, America, Looks

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• If you can see a world within a portrait I would be happy with that. I don't want to tell the story with a painting, though. I'm trying to get away from the story- from the beginning and the ending.

  Danny Fox

  Trying, Stories, World

  Source: thequietus.com

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• Independent of the critique I'm making, I'm just trying to paint a more comprehensive portrait of American religion than you get from a right versus left, religious conservatives versus secular liberal, believer versus atheist, binary. Too often, we just look at religion in America through that kind of either/or lens. I think it's much more complicated than that.

  Ross Douthat

  Religious, Atheist, Independent

  Source: www.christianpost.com

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• Chess hasn't really influenced my literature. It's true, there's a character in Pigeon Post, an old chess player; but it's more of a wink, a self-portrait and not much more.

  Dumitru Tepeneag

  Character, Player, Self

  Source: therumpus.net

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• I've had a reoccurring dream about hanging out with Britney Spears, so maybe it would be fun to chill with her for a bit? Like, see what makes her tick. I had this dream once about Britney, that we were going to get married or something, and so I had to meet her parents but we were stuck on a beach in these sand dunes - and at this point between the dreams and self-portrait, you know way too much about me.

  Gabriel Mann

  Dream, Beach, Fun

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• Some sitters don't engage with the process of having their portrait painted at all. They'll think it's a good opportunity to catch up with all their phone calls.

  Stuart Pearson Wright

  Opportunity, Thinking, Phones

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• Many of Bonnard's later paintings are shot through with a powerful sense of morbidity. The self-portraits he painted after catching sight of himself in the various mirrors in the house - the mirror in the bathroom or the mirror in his bedroom, still lit from above by a single accusatory light bulb - are almost appallingly raw.

  Andrew Graham-Dixon

  Powerful, Self, Mirrors

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• When you do portraits professionally it's not a desire, it's for money.

  Imogen Cunningham

  Artist, Desire

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• Obviously, we can see what was in front of the camera, but if a photograph is honestly made, it's a bit of a self-portrait. I think it's impossible for a photographer who is working honestly to keep this from happening.

  John Sexton

  Photography, Thinking, Self

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• When magic through nerves and reason passes, Imagination, force, and passion will thunder. The portrait of the world is changed.

  Dejan Stojanovic

  Passion, Imagination, Magic

  "Circling: 1978-1987" by Dejan Stojanovic, Krugovanje, Narodna knjiga, Alfa, Beograd, "Alexander the Great," (p. 55), 2000.

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• Later, in a different home, I befriended a eucalypt, using a resilient bough as a trampoline. Learning nothing from having plummeted from the peppercorn, I'd bounce happily in my haven in the heavens. I loved that tree - and fully understand why Heysen, Roberts, McCubbin and the rest devoted so much time and effort to painting arboreal portraits.

  Phillip Adams

  Home, Effort, Tree

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• I'm a filmmaker who is known for these ambiguous portraits that tell multiple sides of the story without really telling the audience what to think.

  Joe Berlinger

  Thinking, Stories, Sides

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• I have a lifetime project which consists of boxes and boxes filled with envelopes on which people have written my name. I've always thought of it as a kind of double portrait, and a portrait of our relationship, which in some cases means nothing. But it makes me feel connected.

  Micah Lexier

  Mean, Names, People

  Interview with Sheila Heti, believermag.com. October 1, 2013.

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• The humor for me is how far above your head the signature is - it's dislocated from the sign of the artist in such a distinct way that it could almost be a self-portrait of a sort.

  Laura Owens

  Artist, Self, Signatures

  Interview with Rachel Kushner, www.believermag.com. May 2003.

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• I'm related to the portrait painter George Romney.

  Wavy Gravy

  Painter, Related, Romney

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• I was sitting here without a shirt on, absentmindedly scratching my back with a pen for about five minutes and I just looked in the mirror and saw that I had drawn a nice mural on my back. It looks kind of like a map of Wyoming, with all the rivers and mountain ranges, or maybe a portrait of Bob Marley. Yes. Tablature

  Jade Puget

  Nice, Rivers, Wyoming

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• When I was first painting the Monopoly guy I received a criticism. People said, "You're just painting cartoon characters, anyone can do that," but I'm actually a very skilled artist. That's why I released a Jack Nicholson portrait right after that that was very detailed in the face to show my skills.

  Alec Monopoly

  Character, Artist, Skills

  Interview with David Morris, www.askmen.com.

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• Everything is a self-portrait.
  Everything is a diary.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Self, Diaries, Self Portrait

  "Diary". Book by Chuck Palahniuk, www.litro.co.uk. 2003.

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