The impact of the use of

photography as an aid
when painting a portrait.

By Laura Bell

Table of Contents
Introduction ..................................................................................................... 3
1. The Effect of Photography on Art ................................................................ 4
2. Photography as a Tool in Painting .............................................................. 6
3. Photography in Modern Portraiture ............................................................. 9
4. For Photography ....................................................................................... 11
4.1. Time ............................................................................................ 11
4.2. True Likeness............................................................................... 11
4.3. Realism........................................................................................ 12
4.4. Ease............................................................................................. 13
5. Against Photography.................................................................................. 14
5.1. Impersonality ............................................................................... 14
5.2. The Photograph Embodies Death ............................................. 15
5.3. The Impact on Painter Sitter Relationship ................................... 16
5.4. Authenticity of the Subject ......................................................... 17
Conclusion .................................................................................................... 19
Bibliography .................................................................................................. 21

INTRODUCTION
Portraiture is a subject of painting that has been practiced throughout
history and still remains central in contemporary art. It is a hugely engaging
topic; each viewer has his or her own opinion of what constitutes individuality,
an issue which portraiture encourages us to think about.
Analysing and portraying one and other is arguably one of the most
stimulating of any subject due to its ability to establish a universal connection
between us all. For this reason, portraiture has remained a timeless subject,
adaptable to most modern practices.
Portraits continue to be an intriguing topic, driving the need to find the
answer to questions about the person in the image from the visual information
they communicate. Their purpose is based on the ability to accurately convey
an intended perception of the subject to an audience of strangers; information
that traditionally could only be gathered and interpreted from an extended
interaction with the subject(s).
In portraiture today, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the
growing popularity for artists to involve means of photography as an aid - or
even a substitute - to the traditional method observing a live sitter, bringing
together hours of sitting into a finalised study.
Painters are using photographs to encapsulate visual information of their
subject in a single mechanical click, creating a more emotionally removed
method of visual study. Introducing photographs as a third member of the
portrait process allows for a distance for the artist to work from. This is certain
to have some affect on the outcome of a painting, whether it is detrimental or
beneficial.
What we know of photography would imply only a benefit for the visual
detail to be accurately translated but nothing more, it cannot communicate a
subjects true essence, as a machine cannot have a human experience,
therefore cannot capture anything more than a visual representation.
The introduction of photography, one might argue, did not murder
painting; it shook things up by forcing artists to consider interpreting their
world in new ways, illustrating their world with less realism and using more
abstract, imaginative methods.
Has photography taken over the role of the portrait painter or have artists
been equipped with a means of new possibilities through the benefits of
photographic image capturing? I will analyse the downsides and advantages
that photography provides to portrait painting to determine an insight into this
debate.

1. THE EFFECT OF PHOTOGRAPHY ON ART

The introduction of photography to Western culture is approximated to
have happened in 1839, an estimate classified not by the inventions of the
principles of photography but rather by the discovery of the chemistry to
develop photographs, known as the camera obscura (from the Latin camera =
room, obscura = dark - a darkened room).
William Henry Fox Talbot was a pioneer of early British photography who
contributed greatly to photography in terms of art. He defined his method as
"the art of photogenic drawing".

William Henry Fox Talbot - Two Plant Specimens (1839).

Another photographer who saw his work in terms of art was John Jabez
Edwin Mayall. In the year 1847, Mayall recalled that at this point of his career
"I was a struggling artist, much devoted to improving my art. This signifies
that photography was already being considered as its own art form. That is,
pictures created with an emotive element, to convey an artist's perceptions to
others.
After seeing the first successful daguerreotype photograph in 1839
French painter Paul Delaroche is claimed to have said, "As from today,
painting is dead!" but this was not to be the case. Consequently, it drove
artists to challenge the rigorous representations that were achieved so
effortlessly by photographs and pushed artists to go back to creating imagery
4

that was more imaginative. Photography liberated art from its ties to realism
and painting began its journey to abstraction. In essence, as Peter Galassi
states, photography adopted (or usurped) the representational function of
painting, allowing (or forcing) painting to become abstract. (Galassi, 1981,
p.12).
This introduction of photography as a practice within art left many
painters skeptical of their artistic purpose, questioning their importance for
image creation. Traditionally, a painters livelihood relied on creating imagery
that depicted truthful representations of people and places. Many painters
were soon hit by the realisation that photography had greater scope for
efficiently and inexpensively capturing this in a momentary click, rather than
the time and effort consuming practice of painting.
To sustain their purpose, artists had to do what the camera could not.
They began painting forms as conceptual representations rather than mimicry
of their physical details; one of the movements that spawned from this was
impressionism. They rejected the pursuit of realistic detail, subverting the
appearance of external visuals, considering how intellect, the eye and the
brain perceived colours and shapes within images rather than the
dispassionate manner recorded by the camera.
Ultimately, photographs have strengthened our relationship with the
world - the camera meticulously analyses and records visual information
feeding our fascination to obtain and document our original visions from a
personal perspective. The camera fully facilitates and encourages individuality
with an effortless instantaneous observation.

2. PHOTOGRAPHS AS A TOOL IN PAINTING

Photography was not as damaging to painters value as first feared, nor
was the affect so immediately evident. Instead, they realised it could become
an invaluable tool, using the camera as an immediate documenting device for
future visual reference for sketches and paintings. Their scope for collecting
visual information was vast; it was a discovery that would revolutionise the
way artists collected the world.
Starting in the 1850s, it was becoming popular for fabricated
photographic composite pictures to be created from a compilation of various
negatives. In 1886 Edwin Henry Landseer used this method to compose his
painting Queen Victoria at Osborne House using separate photographs as
references. The photos, taken by W. Bambridge, were purposely selected to
assemble an ideal image one that could not be held in real life for the
amount of time a painter would require.

Queen Victoria at Osborne House (1886)

Photography was opening up new possibilities for original scenes - a

nineteenth century version of computer-manipulated imagery and now the
requirement for the artist was to paint a fictional reality as a believable
representation.
This means of arrangement is reminiscent of the theatre a backdrop
layered with objects and subjects in the foreground - to create from various
components a scene of imaginary situations. Perhaps this principle has been
underpinned in a large portion of portrait photography throughout history,
6

setting up a false situation to be perceived as real.

William Turner also began to paint landscapes from assorted bits of
information from photographs - Turner of course preferred pictures made up
of bits (imaginative compositions) to pictures of bits (straightforward visual
records). (Galassi, 1981, p.21). This method suited the style of art that was
beginning to emerge in which artists moved away from depicting exact
likeness and used imagery to create scenes that were a combination of
imagination and reality.
In the early 20th century, advances in photographic technology
developed cameras that were no longer expensive and bulky contraptions but
instead compact, portable devices. Celluloid film cameras became available
for mainstream purchase, no longer exclusive to professionals or the wealthy.
Thus began an era of sleek pocket cameras that invite anyone to take
pictures. (Sontag, 1977, p.7)
This widespread access to mass-market photographic equipment kick
started its expanding popularity and the adoption of photographic methods by
artists grew parallel. Essentially, photographs became, as Susan Sontag
states, miniatures of reality that anyone can make or acquire (1977, p.4.)
Walter Sickert, an influential painter and printmaker of the 20 th century,
informed much of his work with the aid of photography. As a result of the ease
it created for painters, he believed that extensive time spent sitting for a
portrait, when photographs could be used, was sheer sadism. In a book
about Sickert, Wendy Baron described his process; Sickert painted the rough
outline of his likeness and form onto the canvas, in what seemed to him a
characteristic pose. He then had the sitter photographed in the same pose
and worked thereafter from the photograph. (Baron, 1992)
For a while, photography was considered an outsider of the arts and had
to fight to be accepted, coming up against criticism and judgment in a world
that was not used to such a mechanical and perfect representation of imagery.
The 20th century American photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn said, When I
began my career photography was hardly considered an art, or a
photographer an artist. It had its own battle to fight and win, but it was to
achieve victory by virtue of its own merits, by the unique subtlety of its tonal
range and its capacity to explore and exploit the infinite gradations of
luminosity, rather than by imitating the technique of the draughtsman. (1978)
This technological achievement was disrupting painting and challenging
all preconceptions of artistic practice. Over time, it had to strive for its own
value and show that, as Peter Galassi stated, photography was not a bastard

left by science on the doorstep of art, but a legitimate child of the Western
pictorial tradition (1981, p.12)
The expanding adoption of photography by artists is an almost
unavoidable progression; this advance in technology seduces the artist as it
conducts processes more efficiently and with more perfection than a human
ever could a perfect representation of pictorial accuracy, which is almost
unachievable task for the draughtsman.
Through the use of photography, artists began to extend the terms of
portraiture through this newly discovered media. It spawned a mass of
experimentation of photography in art, encouraging the artist to confront and
reinvent their purpose in the process of picture making, creating things that
the camera could not.

3. PHOTOGRAPHY IN MODERN PORTRAITURE

For centuries, painters served as essential creators of visual structures
within society, but now with the invention of a machine that can represent the
imagery with meticulous optical truth, to what degree are painters still
necessary? Photography was to impact painting in a way, and on a scale,
never before contemplated.
When painting a portrait two fundamental aims come into conflict: the
aim of visual accuracy of the subject, and the creative aim of artistic
expression. In short, to make a portrait is an attempt to render the subjective
in an objective visual creation.
To paint a portrait is to embark on a mission seeking the truth. But it is
not clear whether the truth we seek is to make an exact record of a persons
absolute visual appearance or to give an insight into ones spirit - their
substance beneath the flesh using flesh as a device to aid the
communication of the subjective. A portrait makes this personal element
public, an exploitation of hidden information extracted by the artist.
Undoubtedly, painters are still using photography as a precious aid to
provide visual information for their paintings, capturing a reference of reality
for infinite re-use. Galassi explains this need as the machines growing
popularity as a symptom of a new thirst for accurate description. (1981, p.12)
If used sensibly as a documenting tool alone, photography can be an
invaluable asset to portrait painters and can make their process less laborious
for sitters.
On the other hand, it can be argued that it is tempting artists into a pitfall
where their paintings will always be devalued because of their substitute for a
live subject. A viewer looking at a painting they know has been constructed on
the basis of a mechanical regurgitation rather than personal impression
automatically prejudges it as a less emotional response to reality. Does a
painting lose value because less imagination was used? Art could lose its selfrespect if the painter becomes more inclined to paint not what he dreams, but
just what he sees.
It could be argued that photographs are detracting from imagination and
making the artist fixate on idealistic perceptions, clever men who have a
propensity for realism will relinquish their struggle with the machine; they will;
thenceforth struggle only with the ideal. (Scarf, 1974, p.142)
The problem with working from photographs is that the camera does not
lie. The relationship between likeness and reality perceived from this
instrument is an observational truth. We know the artist has scrupulously
copied from the image this machine has created - the camera merely provides
the information and the artist copies it. It is perhaps significant to remember
9

what the contemporary painter Lucien Freud said on the subject of the links
between painting and perceived reality, "My object in painting pictures is to
try and move the senses by giving an intensification of reality. Whether this
can be achieved depends on how intensely the painter understands and feels
for the person or object of his choice." (Freud, 1954). Freud believed that in
order to make a successful representation, there had to be some sort of
human connection.
Artists using photography within their practice of portraiture are
reconstructing a classic subject with a modern mind, a mind that has
experienced faster and more efficient creative executions. It would be difficult
for the artist to resort back to traditional and longer means, now that the artist
have access to the quick route of visual representation, they cannot be
without it. The artist needs a reason that surpasses mere visuals to drive them
to paint a portrait.
All in all, for what portrait painting is losing in individual artistic
interpretation it has gained in truthfulness. But through the use of
photography, we could become a generation of lazy painters who reliant on a
machine to interpret the world for us. Photography has now assumed a
powerful position in art, and has significantly modified our way of perceiving
the world visual interpretation has been completely reinvented since the
birth of photography. The new responsibility of painters is now to represent a
way of seeing the world thats is alternative to the photographic way of seeing.

10

4. FOR PHOTOGRAPHY
Since its introduction, painters have realised photography can be useful
in their practice. Its purpose as a functional recording device for painting
references was a revolutionary discovery, allowing artists to collect their world
in solid form rather than a memory. Ultimately, the photograph captures
evidence and experience in a format we can look back on at any given
moment, an option never offered to the artist before photographys existence.
4.1. TIME
The camera is undeniably a convenient means of collecting visual
information, saving the artist both time and money. It allows us to analyse a
selection of pictures side by side and take time to decide comparatively which
view attracts our attention the most and select the best one for a painting.
Photography is an invaluable servant to a painter and one that teaches them
about visuals quicker than any lengthy observation. It allows them to go away
and consider it in a different context/mind frame than they would have in the
live situation. Using photography as a painting reference detracts from the
study of space, separating the artist from the situation and ultimately
rendering them less able to be spatially aware of their position within the
world.
Photography is an art form that allows the creator the most opportunity
to execute their precise expression. The photographer can concentrate vast
amounts of time and consideration into one moment, and the advantage they
have over other artists is that this medium allows them to swiftly record this
momentary inspiration something a painter would never be able to
encapsulate. The photographer can encapsulate profound moments that have
never been able to be captured in art by older processes that took hours
rather than milliseconds.
4.2. TRUE LIKENESS
Photographs resemble exact lifelikeness with no margin for human error
- humans can be unbalanced and imperfect therefore producing paintings that
are untrue to likeness. Photographs are the only guarantee to satisfy a
subjects resemblance - there is no mistake of proportions and detail, it is all
there in proof. Once you see what you were trying to achieve through
drawings so faultlessly captured in a moment, there is no argument to such an
advantage.
Photographs can reveal certain details to us that we may not detect until
subsequent analysis. They allow us go back and airbrush everything into a
painting that the eye may have missed through initial observation.
Furthermore, modern digital photographs with high resolution enable us to

11

zoom in on minute details; tiny hairs, skin imperfections and so on. Even once
the painting is technically complete, possessing a photo of this nature allows
you can go back to edit things, endlessly having the power to improve the
image at your own leisure.
The purpose of these kinds of photographs is to communicate
information in an attempt accelerate a deeper learning of our visual world
through their critically observational nature. This holistic approach contributes
to our growing understanding of the world through representational imagery.
Without photos as a deciphering tool that allows us to closely invade
from a distance, it would require the artist to spend considerable time up close
and in the subjects very personal space to record these, a quite invasive and
uncomfortable method. Naturally, these proximities could have a negative
impact on sitter, which could affect the outcome of the painting.
Photography therefore provides a means of facilitating and removing
procedures that would make us uncomfortable. It acts as a buffer - an
appealing aid that allows us to avoid psychological jeopardy.
Photographs can consist of more than just visuals; they not only convey
material essence but also emotive essence. They can provide more than just
visual information to the artist - they can encapsulate an entire setting,
evoking memories of the experience and its surroundings, associated smells
and emotions.
Ultimately, a photograph can be of value when made with an artistic
intention rather than to merely reproduce a face or figure in the most
mundane sense. It can represent creative expression with more to it than
meets the eye. The ultimate insight of the photographic image suggests:
There is the surface. Now think- or rather feel, intuit what is beyond it, what
the reality must be like if it looks this way. (Sontag, 1979, p.23).
4.3. REALISM
Photography has taught an entire generation how things should look on
a flat surface, as previously it was reliant on the interpretation of the artists
eye alone. David Hockney and Charles M. Falco analysed some historical
portraits and came to the conclusion that painters from as early as 1450 tried
to use some form of optics or lenses as a technical aid to deconstruct and
understand the scenes they were painting. They claim, portraits painted by
Renaissance masters now provide important scientific documentation of the
early use of optical instruments (2000, p.56)
At that time, there was no definition of what was a right or wrong
interpretation, they were still on a journey seeking this answer until the
photograph came along and provided it. We can now have the advantage of
letting the camera interpret light and shadow on a figure, how it shows depth
of field and foreshortening, study and learn from them. They persistently show
an accurate visual document of nature, and we second handedly interpret
their interpretation. They are the perfects imitation of reality.

12

Photographs - or works generated from photographs - would most

arguably appeal more to realist style painters, as after all, the intention of the
realist painter is to imitate a snapshot of reality, as is the sole ability of the
camera. This makes me wonder if photography contributed to a demeaned
spirit, where the artist feels that because of competition with the ability of the
camera, it is more special to show nature as true to form as possible rather
than how they could imagine it to be.
However, it could not be possible for artists to act as a machine and
generate multiple drawings or paintings that are identical. To test this, French
art critic Jules Franois Felix Fleury-Husson, who wrote under the pseudonym
Champfleury, asked 10 artists to collectively paint the exact same scene from
nature and found that not one resembled another therefore it is easy to
confirm that man not being a machine, cannot render objects like a machine.
(Scarf, 1974, p.137)
This shows that each painting was influenced by and reflects an artists
spirit. No two can ever be the same for, as humans, we have an everchanging temperament and this is somehow always expressed in a work of
art. After all, each artist can never loose their artistic spirit and become a
machine so that spirit is always there underlying in the work to some extent.
the individual element (man) is infinitely variable; as much in his creations as
in his temperaments. If temperament had not existed, all paintings would have
of necessity to be simple photographs. (Scharf, 1974)
4.4. EASE
Photography, more so in the modern sense, is a relatively easy practice
to adopt. In comparison with painting, sufficiently less time would need to be
invested in learning how to operate a camera whereas a painter may have to
study years, or even decades to be considered accomplished in their practice.
A machine designed to render reality with perfection is surely no match for a
human. Modern cameras are now equipped with auto focus and settings that
substitute for the elements lacking by the untrained photographer - poor
lighting etc.
It is arguably an easy task to obtain a photograph with a decent sense of
personality, as the camera is sure to pick up on some of the individuality
expressed in some way by that person as it is, after all, reinterpreting visual
form. Therefore any painting produced from this viewpoint has the ability to
harness some sense of the subjects spirit, but with a limit to its entirety.
Although all cameras capture their content with an individuality of its
own, as, like a painting, all images are created with an individual artists
intention, of which no two are the same. The artists intended vision moulds
the outcome of each photograph and it is hard to determine how much of the
work was done by the machine or its manipulator.
The photographic process would assume that the portrait photographer
has greater skill than the portrait painter to be able to decipher the character

13

more efficiently as they are confronted with an unfamiliar subject and given
limited time to extract what they interpret. They must rely on their general
judgment.
So evidently, there is still a human connection built up between the
photographer and subject as there would be with a painter and sitter, but after
the click of the camera the outcome of the work is done, this is where the
human connection stops there and the machine takes over.

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5. AGAINST PHOTOGRAPHY
Although the aid of photography can contribute to the success of a
painting, its use can also evoke criticism as it is argued that working from a
photograph can never be the same as working from life. For all the
advantages photography has given the portrait artist, inevitably there will arise
conflicting issues surrounding the inclusion of photography with such a
traditional practice. The authenticity of a piece could be compromised as a
result of the loss of this relationship between two humans, now replaced with
a camera.
Photographs have now largely overridden painting as our primary form
of visual documentation and their overwhelming presence is driving painting
into a relatively narrow, closed space. The art of painting is surviving but no
longer commands priority. To a generation for whom the craft of drawing was
of central relevance, the camera is now equally as valid in the process of
expression through creation.
Photography captures optical reality with a meticulous truth, removing
artists individual perceptions of beauty and transforming it into a systematic
concept, rigorous to exact representations with no possibility for expression.
Art critic John Ruskin strongly stated, As regards art, I wish it had never been
discovered, it will make the eye too fastidious to accept mere handling.
(Ruskin, 1903, p.76)
In a portrait the artist wants an accurate resemblance, but requires also
the character, those things which art will give you better and more surely than
the daguerreotype which can only seize a face instantaneously and
consequently with the minimum idealisation. (Scharf, 1974 p.138). The
portrait painting needs to have exactitude of the photograph but with the
intimate characteristics of the subject learnt by the artist. It is this fine balance
of acquiring both that would constitute to the success of a modern portrait.
The camera is creating a short cut in the artistic process, and could be
narrowing the artists range of intentions. Hundreds of great painters have
succeeded without completely relying the abundant aid of optics and
photography to interpret colour and lighting.
5.1. IMPERSONALITY
Painting a portrait of a person you arent strongly acquainted presents a
challenge, but painting that person from a photograph escalates the challenge
even further. Informing your work with photographic references means you
are only provided with a mask of this person, a considered pose of a
replication of an intended viewpoint, a snatched glimpse of one precise
moment. Peter Galassi concurs this view and says, photography is nothing
more than a means for automatically producing pictures in perfect
perspective. The aesthetic side is more complex and is meaningful. (Galassi,
1981, p.12).

15

A subject is much better known through a painting than photography, it is

an encapsulation of days, months, years of this persons life, rather than a
millisecond of time. A painter knows his subject better so should be able to
surpass the camera - but a human can never out do a machine in terms of
technical skill. Photography therefore offers a sideways glance at a subject,
and its not until you paint someone through extensive analysis that you really
see that person.
So, one could argue artists who work from photographs are just glorified
photocopiers. When working from a photograph an artist is merely making a
copy of a copy. This in turn detracts from originality, nothing can ever be
original when made from a photograph because its already been created.
Because it was made mechanically, it can never serve as anything more than
an object of automation.
Essentially, both a painting and a photograph are a type of a graphic
rendering. Portraits whether that be painted or photographed all aim to
expose identity characteristics of the subject through telling symbols.
However, there is a quality to every painting that no instrument can give.
Regardless of how perfectly someone is represented in a photograph, you will
never see in it the trembling hand behind each brush stroke. Artist David
Hockney commented, "We've gotten to the point where we think the camera
can capture anything at all," he says, "Well, it can't really. The camera can't
compete with painting at all. The paintings are much more vivid about the
place than photographs are." (Cashdan, 2010).
5.2. THE PHOTOGRAPH EMBODIES DEATH
Photographs also allow us to do something never before so easily
achieved which is to capture a dispensable moment in an indispensable
format. Taking a photograph preserves a momentary slice of life, when in fact
we are creating its own death. It is death in the sense that this precise
moment will never occur in its entirety ever again, thus the photograph is
proof that it once existed, never to happen again. It acts as an object of proof
or remembrance, something you can refer back to at any time, a way of never
having to let it go.
Roland Barthes feels that when a person is being photographed they are
neither subject nor object but a subject who feels he is becoming an object
(1981, p.14). So if a subject is transformed merely into an object when
photographed, are we depicting a person that is no longer living when
referencing from a photograph? After all, photographs are used to capture an
instant of existence that will never be identically repeated again so we are
inevitably always going to paint death. Any art made from such means is still
born, it was made from a method that never had its own life, therefore will
never acquire any.
Both paintings and photographs are funereal, depicting a moment or
experience frozen through an image. However, a painting has an element of

16

continual death because we know a living artist created it, and some of their
sense of living has inevitably ended up in the painting. People think theres
something very magic about the stuff of oil paint, the juicy live stuff, is very
important. Its the ability to turn this stuff into something thats living and
breathing that suggests the idea of immortality. (Maggi Hambling, 2013).
With a painting, the content behaves as a human would; moving and
ever changing. The photograph stops this continual live process and
encapsulates a certain moment, the figure is no longer ever changing, the
photograph freezes it. A photograph has happened, a painting gives the
sense something is still happening, it gives the presence of that person, the
weight of that person, they are still there sitting in front of you. (Maggi
Hambling, 2013).
5.3. IMPACT ON PAINTER SITTER RELATIONSHIP
Although there is a relationship between the photographer and their
subject, it can be argued that this will never be as strong as that of a painter
and their sitter. A unique bond is formed that can only be built through
personal interaction over a period of extended time. It is a broadly complex
connection that is exclusive to every circumstance. Every artist and sitter is a
unique individual who contributes to the materialisation of a particular
outcome.
Lucian Freud was one of the most pivotal and influential portrait artists of
the last century whos paintings are renowned for capturing emotive yet
honest representations of his subjects, saying, I like the idea of working from
people who are able to be themselves not posing, just being Lucian
Freud. He spent substantial amounts of time in the company of his subjects in
a painter-sitter relationship, integrating information from this experience in the
final outcome of the painting - a key ingredient to their success.
Jacquetta Eliot who posed for Freud said: sitting was a moment taken
out of life, a pause for thought (Howgate, 2012, p14). Hockney, another of
Freuds sitters commented: his method of painting is very good because,
being slow, you can talk you get to know and watch the face doing many
things peering coming closer and closer he has this energy his
portraits are as good as have been done by anyone so layered,
photographs cant get near it (Howgate, 2012, p14).
To achieve success like Freuds, it is suggested that there must include a
balance of key ingredients an artist with an intention, and a model that can
be used as a tool illustrate this. It seems that for a painted portrait to become
a valid work of art, both the sitter as well as the artist must have a strong and
decided individuality and that without these conditions; the portrait inevitably
becomes a banal, unadventurous interpretation.
When using a photograph you remove the chance to embark on a quest
for the absolute, the fragility that comes from capturing a resemblance, the
difficulty of it all, the trauma, of finding absolute likeness. After all assessing

17

your subject and injecting what you absorb is all about the time that you
spend with it, and the time the artist spent with it. Portraiture is like a love
affair because youre so completely involved with what youre doing. There
are things you can do in paint that one cant do simply through mechanical
reproduction, and that is still a fertile territory. (Tim Marlow, 2013)
Photography does not intend to replace a live sitter; its just a tool that
helps to record visual information for following use. The process of
photography is trying to realise the image as you would through your retina,
your eyes working in the same way a shutter opens and closes capturing the
image. It speeds up the process of capturing the individual.
In an interview Humphrey Ocean discusses portraiture and achieving
likeness, and claims; Youre not recognising the person, you recognise
yourself, you recognise how you feel (Ocean, 2013). When making a
painting, how you feel in relation to this person drives the entire piece, its
outcome is reliant on this emotional response, which inevitably is going to be
stronger the more time you spend with this person. If you completely remove
yourself from the sitter as you are when painting from a photograph, you wont
be able to feel anything you would end up just painting a straightforward
representation of their appearance and nothing more.
Painting directly from a live sitter also invites another interestingly
opposing situation the sitter scrutinising the artist. A two way judgment is
occurring, the artist is analysing every morsel of the sitters appearance in
order to translate it into image, at the same time the sitter dissects the artists
working method, atmosphere and personal attributes. Both contribute to the
acute balance that can vastly affect the outcome of the picture.
5.4. AUTHENTICITY OF THE SUBJECT
Can a painting created based solely on an image generated by a
camera ever authentically communicate the true essence of that subject? One
could claim a person in a photograph has a sensation of inauthenticity
(Barthes, 1981, p.13). That is to say, when a person is in front of a camera the
subject adopts a certain mind set. They are conscious the camera will capture
everything they are at this moment in time they act like the person they
perceive themselves to be, the way they want others to see them in this
idealistic state.

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So if this is the case, you could argue that all painters that use the
photograph as a substitute for a live sitter lacks the true interpretation of that
person. One you can only get from spending an extended amount of time with
your subject, interpreting and absorbing their being, imprinting this essence
into every brush stroke of your painting thus capturing as much of this person
that you can in one static non living entity. After all, if we look at it in literal and
scientific terms, a painting has no actual life of its own, only the feeling of life
a painter can inject from their own living state.CONCLUSION
For the past few hundred years, painters have sought the assistance of
lens optics and the more advanced they get, the more appealing they
become. Deep down we seek realistic representations to help us define our
world.
The camera is now becoming an invaluable part of the artists
vocabulary, opening up immeasurable visual fields and providing a solid form
of memory. To an extent, photography substitutes experience by the method
of encapsulating without involvement.
However, painting embodies what photography cannot achieve as its
own medium. In a painting we see ourselves. We see time, the artists touch
and human examination. In photography we see a mechanical version
capable of capturing an ideology, a perfect version of what we would like to
be. Painting is thus representative of the natural imbalance and imperfection
of human experience. Perhaps painting can be exemplified as a means to
bring back some of the lost concentration: human relationship and
experience.
Painting can express human imperfections, which we as humans are
drawn to, perhaps because we can personally relate, as unbalanced beings.
Photographs on the other hand, almost seem to be perfect, or at least seem
to be representative of a perfect world, that we as humans will never reach
but still aspire to.
Photographs have set pictorial standards creating a universal language
of vision, more successfully than any previous means. Accessibility is their
appeal, they are to hand at any time and anywhere - nature is not. It appeals
to many artists, with its stylistic rigidity, which they can play upon, bringing
back sensitivity through artists touch.
If all paintings end up being based on photographic renderings as
apposed to a translation through the individual human eye, portraiture could
end up in an undefined indistinguishable state. The use of photograph is
leading us down a road that ends with a uniform, mundane outcome. It has
been predicted, as Scharf states, artists that are armed with all its
mechanical perfection, will never triumph except over mediocre painters
devoid of all inspiration (Scharf, 1974, p.141).
Photography is, to an extent, playing a part in deeming painting less
relevant in a society concerned largely with representations of peoples

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appearances. At the same time, it also feels that there is still a need for artists
to guide us through this image-saturated world with their interpretations of it.

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The artist of today must learn how to function in a world whilst cooperating
and rivaling photographical reproduction, making sure painting can continue
to triumph over photography by offering an alternate way of
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