Make people's portraits in familiar and typical attitudes.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Portraits should capture people in their usual and recognizable poses.
- In plain terms
- Paint people how they normally stand or sit.
- What can you take from it?
- Show people in their natural state.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How do people naturally hold themselves?
- Are your subjects posing or being?
Another view
Typical attitudes might make the work seem cliché or boring.
More from Edgar Degas
You must do over the same subject ten times, a hundred times. In art nothing must appear accidental, even a movement.
Permalink to quote #35 Work a great deal at evening effects, lamplight, candlelight, etc. The intriguing thing is not to show the source of the light but the effect of the lighting.
Permalink to quote #37 Make a drawing. Start it all over again, trace it. Start it and trace it again.
Permalink to quote #34
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