The art of rendering people — no matter the technique being employed

Someone once called Rembrandt a rather crude artist. This is true in the sense that he avoids all decorum in his pictures. His human beings cannot be contained by forms — they are not made of porcelain — there is nothing classical about them. How did he do it? How can we replicate the results in our own work?

At the very least, we should begin a new portrait of something — in this case we’ll call it a person — by accepting that whatever ideas we have about it will be wrong. By having an idea about something, we’re creating a form for it. And yet to render something in paint, we must necessarily put it down in some shape. The nineteenth century argument of line vs color is (in a way) an argument about the priorities of choosing whether form or formlessness should have priority.

Ingres, celebrant of line, created (in a sense) optical illusions, so that when we look carefully, we see that he dramatically altered a person’s body in order to depict a perfect form. He is the kind of painter who includes intellectual tensions, such as in his famous painting of a woman who is reflected from behind by a mirror.

Delacroix, in contrast, chose colors and mood — his works are not typically rigorous intellectually, but they create a sense of passion and drama. His favorite scenes are chaotic — lion hunts, the moments before Cleopatra’s suicide, etc.

These two artists together produced much of the later developments in art, but neither one of them — nor their progeny — created anything as intense as something by Rembrandt or Velasquez.

It was said that Velasquez could paint the air — something like that was said of Rembrandt as well.

How can you paint air? In a sense you have to be able to see air before you can paint it.

Even when you learn to see the air — you then have to find your own personal way of rendering it.

Much of human nature is hidden behind the face — if you only know how to paint a face — without any of the atmosphere inherent in meeting someone — you might be able to make something that looks like a person, but the charisma of moving one’s body or of communicating something — these would be missing.

In a way, it’s the difference between a musician like Louis Armstrong and a singer trained in school.

In order to accurately render a person, you must yourself be capable of containing a great deal of vital force. When you hear Louis Armstrong speak, you sense the depth of his experience and his intuitive grasp of human nature. It is like learning to see by virtue of some other light than the kind that comes from the sun.

When you paint intuitively — with eyes open — when you have experienced enough that your ordinary way of putting people into boxes has been disrupted — then you will begin to learn how to paint the human form.

Even to speak like this is not exactly correct — plenty of people work difficult jobs and wake up early, and yet they never learn the secrets of how to render a face like Rembrandt. But if you have the talent, then you must make sure first of all that your technique is so good that it is completely automatic — and then you must fill your life with challenges and experiences that are completely separate from art. Even if it means working at a gas station for ten years — never once showing your work to anyone — never speaking of art to anyone — this might help you learn to paint.

Rather than building up — it’s really about polishing — like polishing rice — breaking things down.