A portrait is not just a painting, it's a mirror
Imagining a person with a different portrait is not just an imagination. It's our perception of a character. It's something we reach from our own inner perspective. When we look at a face, we don't just see lines and colors, we see the state that that face awakens in our minds. Portraits have a more introspective look, and to be honest, we are putting on canvas something that we have from our own inner perspective and that of the other person
Portraits are still the best psychological tools. Before psychology existed in its current form, painters would record a part of a person's psyche by drawing faces. Things that perhaps couldn't be put into words. A tired look, a vague smile,a silence in the eyes.
But in the painter's eyes, a portrait is just a painting. Nothing more, nothing less. The painter is not looking for a psychological interpretation; he just wants to record what he sees. And perhaps it is this simplicity that makes the portrait so profound.
For me, the portrait is the most fascinating part of painting. Because it contains the painter, the subject, and the audience. Three gazes that meet in one frame.