How can a portrait painting truly express the author’s inner feelings? A painting that is as realistic as a photograph can only achieve a similar effect. Even with photographs, the author will not be satisfied with a rigid and completely realistic representation. Photographers all strive to capture the essence beyond the surface, so that the resulting photographs achieve the greatest possible resemblance and expressiveness.
The essential requirement of portrait painting is to portray the soul of a person through the depiction of their appearance, to draw out emotions that resonate with others, and to portray the power to inspire.
A good figure painting can make the viewer stop in front of the painting, focus their eyes on the picture, and let their thoughts follow the content of the painting like the ups and downs of mountains and the waves of the sea. I have stood in front of figure oil paintings in some art galleries, and I felt that the thoughts and language of the paintings were as sharp as spears and daggers, as shocking as waterfalls and steep mountains, and as overwhelming as the emotional outbursts of mountains and seas, just like the eruption of volcanoes in nature, with blazing flames soaring into the sky and billowing smoke covering the sky and the sun, revealing the inner feelings, emotions, and emotions of the people in the painting, which shocked, shook, and shocked me, as if my pores were open and my hair stood on end. This visual impact was stronger than lightning in the dark night and thunder in the daytime, and it completely infected, captured, and conquered me.
I know that human society has gone through countless millennia of hardship, struggle, and struggle before reaching the present-day industrialized, scientific, electronic, and information-based lifestyle. Even though our current quality of life is ten thousand times better than that of our fathers and grandfathers, it does not mean that there is no room for improvement in our lives.
While we praise the bright sunshine and gentle breeze that human intelligence has brought us, we must not forget that there is another side to it, a side that is still cruel, brutal, and unpredictable. Too many people are scrambling to get into high-ranking positions and become rich overnight, so there are repeated acts of lawlessness, robbery, fraud, corruption, and murder, destroying the beautiful culture left by our ancestors.
Today’s portrait painting, of course, needs to praise truth, goodness, and beauty, and to commend virtue, righteousness, and benevolence. At the same time, it also needs to expose the ugly and evil, and to lash out at the fierce and brutal. Only in this way can the ideological nature of art and the beneficial nature of culture be manifested.
