Talking Models

The biggest thing art schools get wrong

It has become the common practice in art schools and ateliers to have the model hold as still as possible for a portrait study.

While it may seem easier to paint someone who is holding still, the resulting likeness lacks animation and personality. Portraits painted from expressionless models on the verge of sleep look inert and lifeless, no matter how much fancy brushwork is applied to them.

How Andrew Wyeth did it

In 1993, Andrew Wyeth invited Metropolitan Museum director Thomas Hoving to Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania for a two-session portrait.

(Link to video.) It ended up being perhaps the only time Andrew Wyeth was filmed in the act of drawing. Wyeth insisted that Hoving talk during the entire posing session because, first, he wanted to hear Hoving’s stories, and second, because he wanted Hoving’s face to be animated: "I must have animation. I can only work from someone whose face is moving,” Wyeth said.

Proof that Sargent’s models were animated

John Singer Sargent also liked his subjects to talk while he painted them. Vernon Lee told her mother that she enjoyed sitting for Sargent very much: “John talking all the whole time and strumming the piano between times...He says I sit very well; the goodness of my sitting seems to consist in never staying quiet a single moment.” They were childhood friends and she was as much a whirlwind talker as he was.

Portrait of Elizabeth Chanler by John Singer Sargent, 1893

When Margaret Chanler was in London in 1893 with her sister Elizabeth, Margaret persuaded John Singer Sargent to paint her sister's portrait.

"It was his custom," said Margaret, "to admit callers, so that the sitting should not become too rigid. I was asked to keep the talk moving with those who came. I suggested that Mr. Kipling ought to fill the vacant poet laureate’s post. 'What an unpleasant American idea!' Mr. Sargent walked backwards to the wall of his studio, his brush held very high, then returned to the canvas. Lively conversation much amused but never distracted him. When the portrait was finished (he had painted the head in only twice), I overheard him: 'Miss Chanler, I have painted you la penserosa, I should like to begin all over again, and paint you l’allegra.'" According to Sargent, she had "the face of the Madonna and the eyes of a child."

This firsthand account confirms that Sargent kept his models engaged and talking, not holding dead-still as is the custom now.

While there is a place for portraits that suggest inward reflection, a face comes to life and changes shape when a person starts talking. The eyes change and the muscles around the mouth come into action. Italian sculptor Gianlorenzo Bernini(1598-1680) was famous for carving his subjects in animated expressions. When he carved a bust of cardinal Scipione Borghese, he showed his lips slightly parted and activated.

According to Simon Schama, who produced an excellent video about Bernini, “What Bernini was after was a speaking likeness, because he thought that people gave themselves away most characteristically either just before or after they spoke.”

Henry James (detail) by J.S. Sargent

John Singer Sargent's portrait of the writer Henry James suggests his fierce intellect partly through the lively expression of the mouth and eyes.

Painting from a subject who is talking requires that the artist hold forms in memory rather than copying appearances. To implement this practice in art schools, someone, presumably the teacher, would have to maintain eye contact with the sitter and keep them in conversation.

Is this the practice anywhere that you have seen? What’s been your experience? Please let me know in the comments.