Wednesday, January 27, 2010

National Portrait Gallery: Sitters, artists and photographers talking

National Portrait Gallery: Sitters, artists and photographers talking [pdf]
The National Portrait Gallery in Britain has a great digital collection of artists and photographers speaking on the process of creating specific portraits, as well as a collection of sitters speaking about their experience of being the subjects of those portraits. Visitors interested in reading about the sitter, the artist who painted them, and the actual portrait, need only choose from the list of "Contemporary Sitters", and read the transcript of an audio recording, a video recording, or both. Then look at the list of "Artists", and choose whichever artist painted the portrait, and read an audio or video transcript, or both. It's interesting to compare the artist's perspective on the sitter, and the sitters own perspective. The transcript of what Germaine Greer described as a sitter contrasts greatly with what the artist Paula Rezo said about the experience of painting Greer. Visitors interested in seeing the result of what the sitter and artist were talking about, can look in the far right hand column of the homepage, entitled "Related Portraits", to view the actual painted portrait. The sitters' names are not in alphabetical order, so look at the whole list. >From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2009. http://scout.wisc.edu/

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