Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Related quotes
The reason that I'm an actor, or an artist, is ultimately because I'm trying to paint a self-portrait, and the most complete and beautiful self-portrait that you can.
quote by Terrence Howard
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Portrait of Aspiring Perfection
A portrait of aspiring perfection hath been painted
Through the creation of evolutions tidings.
A portrait of respiring reflections lay untainted.
Leaving my thought in meditation hiding.
They cry, the muses of my soul how they cry,
Forever sighing as I am forever wishing to be whole
And in so doing I am assuming myself to be but half.
poem by David Lacey
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Portrait of a heart
Portrait of a heart
~
A portrait piece by piece
built through the heart
presents a romantic world
memories tell a moving tale
the full beauty of a loving heart
where the artist knows no end
and feels the strain of pride
still the picture takes its shape
to present a landscape of a life
touched by the words of love
scarred by the losses felt
the heart speaks and draws
from the uncharted depths
there in the eye of its picture
a romance reveals
a portrait of a world
built through the heart
poem by Matthew Holloway
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Portrait
As I gaze blink-less
At the bare beauty of your persona
Behind the thin satin coat
Your portrait steps out alive
Out of the golden frame.
Your portrait generates
A multitude of elemental emotions,
Some romantically elusive like fluttering butterflies,
Others tangible like love-making,
Yet some others audible like the dying cadence
Of a stringed music played on my lyre.
Am churned by the immaculate portrait
Like the ocean
And I deliver nectar and parijat
From the dark womb of my private secrecy.
I owe it to your portrait timeless,
As I take the yet-to-be christened
Eleventh incarnation of Indian pantheon
Embodying love and truth
With an assured confidence.
I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.
quote by Salvador Dali
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I wanted to become a cartoon artist, a portrait artist, and an illustrator. This was my first idea.
quote by Karl Lagerfeld
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I would hardly call myself an artist in that sense; I doodle, I draw, I'm not a trained artist, I couldn't sit down and do an accurate portrait of anyone.
quote by Rene Auberjonois
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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It is not likely that posterity will fall in love with us, but not impossible that it may respect or sympathize; so a man would rather leave behind him the portrait of his spirit than a portrait of his face.
quote by Robert Louis Stevenson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Nothing Natural About It At All
That portrait painted,
Hangs much too low,
The light from it appears to be shaded.
Where did the gleeming smiles,
And the brightness go?
Those sloping lush hills,
Seemed so green just yesterday.
Even when the clouds and rain came near...
None of it on this portrait showed.
The rays of the Sun,
Were then so clear.
Wasn't the Sunrise on the horizon,
Full of vivid promises free of duels?
And who came to smear a tinge of darkness upon it?
That had to have been just after noon.
The peaks of mountains,
Snowcapped and strong?
There is something about it,
That will not be prolonged.
The melting of snow,
Seems to have gone.
What 'is' this?
Something about it,
Has to be stopped.
I can see in its future,
This portrait is going to be forgotten.
Snatched off the wall.
And its presence remembered...
From memories dropped.
That can not be the same portrait!
Seen now to hang so pitifully.
Tilted, in a lopsidedness.
That brings not a hint of joy to me.
Is this someone's idea,
Of a joke to provoke?
My atmosphere...
Is not a place to invite tears?
The sweeping of the strokes...
Has abandoned its meaning.
To another scene in a secret elope.
That portrait painted,
Hangs much too low,
The light from it appears to be shaded.
Where did the smiles,
And the brightness go?
HELLO!
...hello...hello...hello...
Even the echos once heard from the valleys,
Aren't responding with a clarity.
Rich and reflective.
This is not an original.
This one is absolutely faked.
Who is trying to exhibit this image?
To pass it as something great?
Take it away from this place.
Get rid of it.
And tear down that wall.
It makes me sick.
It has become too common.
It blocks out all that's right.
There's nothing natural about it at all.
It conflicts with the ambiance.
And this ambiance...
Does not invite blight!
Get rid of it now!
More light is what I wish.
Take that piece of trash and burn it.
After its been dumped,
To cover the fumes...
In a dirt covered ditch!
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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When you start with a portrait and search for a pure form, a clear volume, through successive eliminations, you arrive inevitably at the egg. Likewise, starting with the egg and following the same process in reverse, one finishes with the portrait.
quote by Pablo Picasso
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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When having my portrait painted I don't want justice, I want mercy.
quote by Billy Hughes
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Her Portrait
Im painting another portrait. Look at her just look at her. Shes what you made. How do you justify it. Well let me be her angel of darkness. Let me take away all her pain and absorb it into me. I'm a sinner and saint. Im the equilibrium that holds every thing together. I watched many suffer. That when they are the strongest they are ever gonna be. I'm painting another portrait. Look at her just look at her. Shes everything you are not. Are you feeling jealous of what shes got. The ability to heal. The ability shield those under her. Let me be her angel of darkness. Let me take away all her pain and absorb it into me. Let me make her sane. Children are lost as love fades. Revenge leaves so many scars. Families torn apart for justification. Just make it okay. Just make it okay and make it go away. I'm painting another portrait. Just look at her. Just look at her. Such pretty eyes in which evil hides. Pictures of slaughter. It was her three year old daughter. Let me be her angel of darkness.
poem by Ace Of Black Hearts
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Tomb of Lanis
The Lanis you loved, Markos, isn't here
in this tomb you come to weep by, lingering hours on end.
The Lanis you loved is closer to you
when you're in your room at home and you look at his portrait—
the portrait that still keeps something of what was valuable in him,
something of what it was you used to love.
Remember, Markos, that time you brought in
the famous Kyrenian painter from the Proconsul's palace?
What artistic subtlety he used trying to persuade you both,
the minute he saw your friend,
that he absolutely must do him as Hyacinth.
In that way his portrait would come to be better known.
But your Lanis didn't hire out his beauty like that:
reacting strongly, he told him to portray
neither Hyacinth nor anyone else,
but Lanis, son of Rametichos, an Alexandrian.
poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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The artist's piece of coal covers the loneliness of the portrait.
quote by Camelia Oprița (2007)
Submitted by Alexander G
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The gallery of my heart
The gallery of my heart
~
Like a portrait hung
In the gallery of my heart
A girl of undoubted beauty
Breathtaking and full of wonder
Holds my gaze completely
I find my words flowing
In a river of adoration
I dedicate her my soul
There is a girl of beauty
Beyond which none compare
Painted to a memory
In the gallery of my heart
The softness of her eyes
A warmth to her lips
Fair skin and cascading hair
What love may imagine
When looking upon
A girl in portrait hung
In the gallery of my heart
poem by Matthew Holloway
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Legacy of the Purple Robe
The legacy of the purple robe,
Worn by the most powerful of kings, Gods, and highest of lords,
The purple robe of majesty, embedded with diamond galore,
The legacy of the apparel and the creator never seen before,
In correlation with the platinum crown,
The Creator of everything wearing the magic gown,
Beyond the planet Earth, the creator beyond the renowned,
Creator of the nine planets and the galaxy all around,
Beyond the sky, the solar system painted by the creator,
The creator without a name, the universe’s dictator,
Higher than Zeus, God, Allah, something much greater,
The creator with portraits of the universe, the painter,
Wearing the purple gown and the platinum crown, the God of all,
Within the asteroid belt, the universe’s wall,
In the creator’s portrait, the solar system enthralled,
Not a religion, but something higher than the skies,
Something invisible, looking down on the Earth with blue eyes,
Beyond religion, the highest of the power of gods refined,
The artist of the universe’s blueprint that’s intricately designed,
Creator of the moon, the grass, the mountains, and the sun that shines,
The purple robe beyond the stars, worn by the creator in the royal shrine,
The purple robe and the platinum crown, only worn by the most creative of mind,
For this creator was truly a painter, an artist of the universe,
Inflicted by hypergraphia and insanity of mind, the artist’s curse,
That sits above the realm of space when the planets dispersed,
At one point everything was one planet cluttered in space,
Until he created boundaries within the realm that separated planets in a linear trace,
Above the galaxy in the darkened realm beyond the stars the creator’s place,
Until he created the new portrait of the big bang, and the old blueprint was replaced,
Within one shattering boom of the storm, the portraits transformed in haste,
And the cluttered planet was forgotten forever without a trace,
Now separated in the solar system,9 planets are spread in space,
The purple robe, only worn by the artist and the God of everything,
Compulsively observing his portrait sitting on the different sections of the asteroid ring,
The platinum crown, and the purple robe, worn by the ultimate king,
Beyond religion, the highest power humans never seen,
The creator, that painted everything.
poem by Kurt Kacich
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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At the unveiling at the White House of the presidential portrait, President Bush pointed out that Hillary Clinton was the first sitting Senator in history to have her portrait hanging in the White House.
quote by Eleanor Clift
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Poem Title
A face painted to the eye
A portrait offered to the heart
Builds a feeling built to climb
Touching skies overhead
Amidst high heavens rising
A poem without a title
The ode to loves beginning
Speaks of all that’s seen
And all that’s felt within
In the eye the face painted
Beautiful and pure
Soft skin and petal lips
A look holds gazing
Perfectly framed with hair
Woven tresses curl
Breath taken to silence
Words wait to be written
A ode to loves beginning
A face painted to the eye
A poem without a title
poem by Matthew Holloway
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Welcome To My Hometown
Has anyone ever tried,
To tell you the kind of childhood you had?
Or the environment you spent,
Your yourthful days in...
As if you were on on tour,
And they were explaining it?
Has anyone ever told you,
About those grade schools you attended.
With an embelishment done,
As if you were on the sidelines...
Looking on for fun.
And they attempted to tell you,
About those teachers who taught...
And you seldom saw them in a classroom at all?
Welcome to my hometown.
Where any visitor who comes,
Would think what took place...
Was straight from a portrait painted,
By Normon Rockwell.
Welcome to my hometown.
Where actual events can be erased,
With a replacing of the truth...
To conveniently be mentally innovated,
For the sake of giving it a different face.
I had been often told how my parents were,
When they were raising me.
What they did and how I responded.
As if I had lost all memory.
I even had been told what I did with friends.
And what apartments they lived in.
While as a child growing up in the projects...
I would listen to these tales,
And wondered where I was when the teller of this...
Spent most their time locked up in jail.
Welcome to my hometown.
Where actual events can be erased,
With a replacing of the truth...
To conveniently be mentally innovated,
For the sake of giving it a different face.
Welcome to my hometown.
Where any visitor who comes,
Would think what took place...
Was straight from a portrait painted,
By Normon Rockwell.
And back then...
Anyone looking like Normon,
Would have been chased out of the neighborhood...
I lived in!
With no time to sit, sketch...
Or paint a portrait from a 'hand-me-down' myth.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Leonardo
The one on portrait hanging on the wall
Perhaps the best that history can recall
He lived and worked five hundred years ago
And still the legend of Leonardo grow.
A Poet, a Scientist and an Engineer
An Inventor and an Artist without peer
From near poverty to fame at a time
When to be poor was looked on as a crime.
Leonardo the greatest son of Italy
Opened the gate to modern technology
No stranger to the book of history
In five hundred years no greater one than he.
Five centuries back he said that man would fly
And the legend live his fame will never die
His dusty portrait in old frame hang on wall
Perhaps the best that history can recall.
poem by Francis Duggan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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