Portraiture

Portraits....

I never set out to be a portrait painter - but like my previous post the public seem to think differently. The painting opposite is a painting of my wife and again it was never proposed as a portrait but as the definition of portrait suggests I suppose it must be. (Portrait: noun an artistic representation of a person, especially one depicting only the face or head and shoulders.)

But my point is this - Is all figurative art portraiture? Do we need only art by association? As in do we need to know the person to appreciate it as art. For some to purchase a figure painting they must know the person directly. 

A couple came into the gallery the other day and we were speaking about this. The guy made the point that in the modern world today we require association. We need the souvenir, the relic of association - some connection of our relationship with the object. We want the object that speaks to our ego and not so much our artistic appreciation.

Don't know if I agree completely but it got me thinking about portraiture and our relationship to it. I have always felt that a painting should be appreciated and owned even if there is no relationship with the person. But maybe that's just me willing everyone to buy whatever I desire to paint and not just commissioned portraits. In saying that I only do 3-4  a year so I can't complain. The above painting sold quickly so there are many who seem to enjoy figurative art on a similar plane as a person is more than just the sum of their features.