I think it's quite obvious that I developed a distinct passion in
making portraits. I can comfortably call myself anti-social but interestingly I
can connect to people by looking at them, not by talking to them. I believe
everyone was born with a unique kind of beauty, but it's way too often destroyed
by the popularity of photos. Actually people are so used to look at photos
they lost the ability to appreciate the beauty of men in their purest form. They
are trained to admire makeups and photoshops instead. How sad!!
Every portrait painter that I love with all my heart, namely
Rembrandt, Velazquez, Van Dyck, Mancini and Morelli are all famous for their
self-portraits too. This may feed the common misunderstanding that all artists
are narcissistic but no, it’s not (always) the case. The fact is, to make a
good portrait you need to feel connected to your model, if there is one at all.
Therefore self-portrait is inevitable in the journey of becoming a portrait
painter. Who else, except yourself that you can understand better? Of
course not everyone understands themselves that well to begin with but that’s
exactly what makes self-portraits interesting too: they change with time. It
reveals a lot about the painter’s inner self, probably more than he would love
to, but there is no way to hide. Real art can’t lie.
So the purpose of writing the above paragraph is 2-fold: 1) to let readers understand how
important it is for a portrait painter to make self-portraits and 2) to
mentally prepare readers that there will be A LOT of self-portraits coming in
this blog. Yah I mean it. And no I am not narcissistic. I promise.
