PORTRAITS from Lidewij Edelkoort
A good portrait opens the soul of the sitter to the world and professes faith in the power of picturing an unknown truth, a portrait is thus an artistic representation of a human, driven by the ideal to represent the personality and even catch the mood of the person, or cat or coat for that matter. This focus on the face and shoulders will create a stir in fashion where the portrait collar will take on new social media value, showing the essence of dress within one detail. The portrait often shows a person looking directly at the artist and the audience in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer, and therefore a good portrait is not measured in likeness but in liveliness, in how to portray the energy that a person possesses, how to depict serenity, melancholy or spleen, how to sculpt strength and energy, how to paint pain. Hidden moods and thought processes are laid bare by the simple gesture of a piece of charcoal, undiscovered qualities unveiled with the movement of a pen, inner strength revealed by the stroke of a brush. Tears are rendered in watercolours, skin is highlighted with sanguine crayons, features are finely and precisely etched for historical purposes. The shutter of a camera will hold a stare into eternity, making icons of our contemporaries. With the push of a button people freeze themselves with others in selfies, creating their own singular legends, to be communicated instantly. But portraits can also be written and recited, hidden in a song, chosen by a poem, revealed in a story. Narrated as a portrait of a lady, a portrait of a marriage or a portrait of the artist as a young man.