PRODUCING A LIVING PORTRAIT To produce a portrait bust that gives the impression of life the sculptor must have behind him a wealth of experience. He must know that a man does not laugh with his mouth or his eyes alone but with his entire head, and that when he smiles there is a con certed movement of all the features (Pl. XV., fig. 1).
Every subject has a definite life flavour that reveals itself in some individual characteristic or series of characteristics. The successful portrait head discovers these characteristics. Needless to say, the sculptor who has personal knowledge of his subject can produce a more living bust. But he is seldom called upon to exe cute a portrait of an intimate friend. The portrait commission concerns itself almost exclusively with the perfect stranger, and when faced with such a sitter the sculptor must draw largely upon his knowledge of human nature and his ability to read facial char acteristics in the light of the subject's environment and profession. What he does and is contributes largely to the basis for character analysis.
When the sculptor gropes unsuccessfully for this revelatory con tact he produces the unanimated street-car face, visualizing the man on the model stand as impersonally and monotonously as he would the man beside him in a tram. The features are there; the likeness may be there also, but the personality, the life-giving quality of understanding between subject and artist, is absent. Sculptor and Sitter.—In many respects a portrait head cre ated from memory may have more life than one executed after many sittings. Sitters vary greatly in what they give of them selves. Some are sympathetic and establish at once a bond of sympathy with the sculptor, thus enhancing his creative power. Others sit through hours without a spark of understanding. It is often true that more can be gained by talking to a subject during rest periods and by studying the reaction of the man when he is unconscious of a pose than when he sits through the long hours on the stand. After a time the expression of any face sets, and there is danger of reproducing a deadened countenance.
One of the most difficult tasks that a portrait sculptor is called upon to face is the commission to make the head of someone no longer living. Many busts of historical personages are created solely from contemporary prints, photographs or portraits, the character of the data varying according to the period in which the individual lived. Seldom is there adequate material from which to work. If the portrait desired is that of some notable who lived many years ago the artist may wield a freer hand and use his own knowledge of the human head and his conception of the man's character without being forced to meet the criticisms and sugges tions of relatives or friends whose impressions of the individual may be vivid but conflicting (Pl. X., fig. I). The one hope of suc cess lies in the sculptor's knowledge of construction and in the I wealth of his experience as a portraitist, and with this knowledge and experience he must portray that intangible quality known as character. It is no task for the novice.
Black hair falls in heavier masses and gives a solid effect. Where it separates and one lock appears distinct from another the separa tion is sharp and produces a strong shadow. Blonde hair, on the other hand, has very few solid masses. It is fluffy and light in effect and does not possess either the solidity or the sheen of dark hair (Pl. XV., fig. 4). The difference between blonde and brunette indicates at once the need for a corresponding difference in the modelling of each type. Forms that are definite and that produce definite shadows give a brunette colouring while blonde colouring is obtained through a negation of the shadows and by the modelling of subtle, less well defined forms.
This sculptural interpretation of pigments was aided by the ancients through actual colour application as seen in many a por trait discovered on Egyptian soil (Pl. IX., fig. 2). Chinese por trait heads were also coloured, while a similar tradition reappeared in the ecclesiastical heads of the middle ages. It was possible for the Egyptian portraitist to paint on the bust the elaborate neck laces and jewel arrangements that give a clue to the mode of dress and of life. Crowns and head-dresses, first expressed in terms of form, were then painted in designs and colours characteristic of the period (Pl. IX., fig. I).
When the actual application of colour fell into disuse it became necessary for the portraitist to indicate pigments and design solely through the modelling of form. Folds of the toga might appear in Roman portraiture, while the coiffure of the lady of antiquity, changing with the style of each succeeding era, writes its chapter in the conventions of the portrait head.
Externals thus leave their stamp upon the portrait bust as it marches through the ages, but externals have never made the portrait a finer work of art. It stands or falls by virtue of its con struction, its modelling and the artist's own knowledge of human nature.