top left: Portrait - Dante
top right: Portrait - Mickey Mouse
above left: Portrait - Rembrandt
above right: Portrait - Self Portrait
Portrait Set 1993-1994
I like the idea that a portrait is sometimes about what it is to BE a person rather than what it is like to LOOK AT a person. Velasquez's painting 'Las Meninas' is about what BEING a Princess is like.
Most historical portraits are really propaganda for the status of that character, so we have no idea what these people were like. It could be fun to guess. Was Dante really a Hells Angel and Christina Rossetti an exotic dancer?
Dante 1265-1321
The first Hell's Angel. Dante gave order to the universe, the Here, the Now and the Then, in particular and precise detail, down to the last hiccup. How did he know that Mount Purgatory was one day going to be Australia (or very near) and how did he know that the world was round when 200 years later Columbus wasn't sure?
Mickey Mouse 1928-present
Copyright Walt Disney. Walt was the first artist to make animals walk like people as Daumier was the first artist to make people walk like animals. Walt managed to make the world pretty and safe for us humans. GOOD OLD WALT.
Rembrandt 1606-1669
The PORTRAIT, being a disguise should, as Edward HEath said, present the acceptable face ... the Dutch East Indies had to learn to be Dutch - no more exotic flora, no more pagan sunlight, no more graceful dances - plenty of picturesque old beggars with halitosis AND PLENTY OF SHADOWS.
Self Portrait 1930-present
I have just won the MTV Vanguard Award, Sept 10th 1995. I was pretty good with the Traveling Wilburys but best of all with the Heartbreakers, but then, who wouldn't want to be? Like I said at the Awards Ceremony "It's nice to be noticed".
