In the portraits of the grandees of history, the important and self-important, their eyes are not looking inward. They’re glaring at you, demanding your attention. They scream, “I’m a big shot, pay attention to my exalted place in life…and the things I wear and own.”
Status is held sacred in all areas of society and there are levels and styles of stature…and portrait painters had better pay attention.
Kings, queens, and potentates have always wanted majesty—the loftiness of power and wealth. Painters like Hans Holbein gave it to them.
Politicians, on the other hand, go for the stately, whether they’re actually stately or not. They want the earthy tones of the original Rembrandt applied to the somber visages of humble nobility. Their gaze floats past you and settles on a great vision of the future. Rembrandt Peale got it rolling in America and many others have understood the genre. The humbly heroic visage continues to this day.
Entertainment titans want flair and the latest acclaimed styles with lots of color. It’s mostly photography these days. You get the impression they’re looking in a mirror, checking out their own beautifulness.
The portraits of real people, by first-rate painters like Desiree Sterbini are often not “portraits” so much as works of art that can touch a place in your heart. The people often have an inner gaze—an inner strength.
The core of any portrait is identity—that inner and outer amalgamation of spirit and bone, skin and energy…especially mental and emotional strength. Desiree captures that identity through still, quiet moments of looking inward while looking outward.
The portrait of PTSD is like that: it is the inner and outer consolidation of identity and energy. It can suddenly explode in an emotional frenzy and become a portrait of someone who’s looking back at you. It can be a you that you don’t recognize. That’s the time I reach for the peace of the spiritual in a conversation, yes, a prayer—a joining with the inner strength of the supernatural.