According to some inexplicable and inexorable law, the person commissioning a portrait does everything in their power to resist the talent of the artist they themselves have chosen.
A person very rarely sees themselves as they truly are, and even if they do know themselves, they are unpleasantly surprised when the artist truthfully captures their appearance.
They wish to be portrayed in the most impersonal and banal manner, as an official or secular puppet. Their personality must be completely absorbed by their position and status in society. The prosecutor is interested only in his gown, and the general in his gold-embroidered uniform.
They don’t care whether the artist delves into their soul. Hence the success of mediocre portraitists and sculptors, who limit themselves to conveying only the external, banal aspects of their subjects, along with their official poses and superficial expressions.
If the artist, like a photographer, reproduces only the external features, if they merely trace lines without relating them to the overall character, then their work does not deserve attention.
The artist should primarily seek spiritual likeness in the features of the face – that is the essence of their work. In short, the features must be expressive, revealing the soul of the model... the artist's task is to separate truth from falsehood.
In art, everything that is insincere, artificial, everything that aspires to appear beautiful and grand but is not characteristic, everything that is shallow, refined, that smiles without reason, that flirts unnecessarily, that boasts and pretends without foundation – all of it is falsehood.
When an artist, in an attempt to "beautify," depicts spring as greener, dawn as pinker, young lips as more crimson, they create ugliness because they lie.
When they soften the grimace of suffering, the grayness of old age, when they smooth out nature, sweeten it, embellish it, or temper it to please the audience, they create ugliness because they fear the truth.
Auguste Rodin nostr:note1lsx4rxd49rr3mfq77mev9jdrkh83w5ymmv0rhgj97h855ug2s8vs6usv4m