[Sidenote:  Expression.]

The camera, and more particularly the instantaneous camera, has habituated people to expect in a portrait a momentary expression, and of these momentary expressions the faint smile, as we all know, is an easy first in the matter of popularity.  It is no uncommon thing for the painter to be asked in the early stages of his work when he is going to put in the smile, it never being questioned that this is the artist’s aim in the matter of expression.

The giving of lifelike expression to a painting is not so simple a matter as it might appear to be.  Could one set the real person behind the frame and suddenly fix them for ever with one of those passing expressions on their faces, however natural it might have been at the moment, fixed for ever it is terrible, and most unlifelike.  As we have already said, a few lines scribbled on a piece of paper by a consummate artist would give a greater sense of life than this fixed actuality.  It is not ultimately by the pursuit of the actual realisation that expression and life are conveyed in a portrait.  Every face has expression of a far more interesting and enduring kind than these momentary disturbances of its form occasioned by laughter or some passing thought, &c.  And it must never be forgotten that a portrait is a panel painted to remain for centuries without movement.  So that a large amount of the quality of repose must enter into its composition.  Portraits in which this has not been borne in mind, however entertaining at a picture exhibition, when they are seen for a few moments only, pall on one if constantly seen, and are finally very irritating.

But the real expression in a head is something more enduring than these passing movements:  one that belongs to the forms of a head, and the marks left on that form by the life and character of the person.  This is of far more interest than those passing expressions, the results of the contraction of certain muscles under the skin, the effect of which is very similar in most people.  It is for the portrait painter to find this more enduring expression and give it noble expression in his work.

[Sidenote:  Treatment of Clothes.]

It is a common idea among sitters that if they are painted in modern clothes the picture will look old-fashioned in a few years.  If the sitter’s appearance were fixed upon the canvas exactly as they stood before the artist in his studio, without any selection on the part of the painter, this might be the result, and is the result in the case of painters who have no higher aim than this.

But there are qualities in dress that do not belong exclusively to the particular period of their fashion.  Qualities that are the same in all ages.  And when these are insisted upon, and the frivolities of the moment in dress not troubled about so much, the portrait has a permanent quality, and will never in consequence look old-fashioned in the offensive way that is usually meant.  In the first place, the drapery and stuffs of which clothes are made follow laws in the manner in which they fold and drape over the figure, that are the same in all times.  If the expression of the figure through the draperies is sought by the painter, a permanent quality will be given in his work, whatever fantastic shapes the cut of the garments may assume.