Monday 3 February 2014

To see ourselves as others see us!

A recent discussion on Tris's illustrious blog, Munguin's Republic,r regarding portraits of the famous/infamous for enormous sums of money reminded me of an incident when I was a young sprog and budding young Constable - the artist, not the fuzz.  We were set a project to copy a portrait by a better-known artist and I chose to try and copy "Tolstoy takes a rest in the woods" which portrayed a bearded gentleman, reminiscent of Conan, reading a book in the woods.  Having spent weeks on it and going over it in minute detail I triumphantly handed it in only to be gently reminded, two seconds later, that Tolstoy probably had more than three fingers on his right hand as shown in the portrait.

However, I am still available at a reasonable price if the UK Government would like to get in touch. 

No, Taz, there is a limit to what I can do with the subject matter.

7 comments:

  1. Did your art teacher know Tolstoy?

    I mean, it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that he only had three fingers.

    Teachers can be so unfair.

    Anyway, I thought art was about imagination. I mean I bet Picasso never bothered to count how many fingers he was sticking on someone. He was lucky if he got the number of eyes or ears right.

    Nick Clegg wants painting. There's some Creosote in our shed...

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  2. PS: You should have painted Dostoyevsky. No one knows how many fingers he had!

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  3. Thanks, Tris, I was going to do him except I could not spell his name. The whole point was that in the original there were four fingers showing and despite me looking hundreds of times I did not spot my mistake but my tutor, who was usually half-puggled, spotted it right away. I should have run it past Cathy but we were distracted!

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  4. Hmmm... you would have been. I could ask how many fin... No ...This is a family blog.

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  5. If three fingers are good enough for Homer...






    Homer Simpson that is.

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  7. Actually, Conan, in your blog photo you appear to have only three fingers on your right hand! Coincidence?, I think not!

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