nationalgalleries | True Portraits @nationalgalleriesofscotland | Uploaded September 2016 | Updated October 2024, 20 hours ago.
Artist John Singer Sargent once remarked, ‘a portrait is a painting with something wrong with the mouth’. A perhaps flippant mark which gives way to some serious questions: can a portrait painter every really capture a true likeness of their sitter, and is that likeness a fixed thing anyway?
In this film, art critic and author Laura Cumming, forensic anthropologist Caroline Wilkinson (Meet the Ancestors and History Cold Case), and Robert Steele (one of the Three Oncologists in Ken Currie’s popular painting) discuss the notion of truth in the artistic portrait. With particular reference to historical facial reconstructions; the Three Oncologists; Corneille de Lyon’s ‘Mary of Guise’; and Alexander Nasmyth’s portrait of Robert Burns, our speakers talk about our fascination and whether there is such a thing as a true portrait.
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Website: nationalgalleries.org
Artist John Singer Sargent once remarked, ‘a portrait is a painting with something wrong with the mouth’. A perhaps flippant mark which gives way to some serious questions: can a portrait painter every really capture a true likeness of their sitter, and is that likeness a fixed thing anyway?
In this film, art critic and author Laura Cumming, forensic anthropologist Caroline Wilkinson (Meet the Ancestors and History Cold Case), and Robert Steele (one of the Three Oncologists in Ken Currie’s popular painting) discuss the notion of truth in the artistic portrait. With particular reference to historical facial reconstructions; the Three Oncologists; Corneille de Lyon’s ‘Mary of Guise’; and Alexander Nasmyth’s portrait of Robert Burns, our speakers talk about our fascination and whether there is such a thing as a true portrait.
Facebook: facebook.com/nationalgalleries
Twitter: twitter.com/NatGalleriesSco
Instagram: instagram.com/natgalleriessco
Website: nationalgalleries.org
