Portraits

"The most natural, manly, useful, noble, and, however apparently easy, the most difficult of arts is portrait painting" (trans. Thomas Holcroft). "Each perfect portrait is an important painting, since it displays the human mind with the peculiarities of personal character. In such we contemplate a being whose standing, inclinations, sensations, passions, good and bad qualities of mind and heart, are mingled in a manner peculiar to itself. In portraits paintings we see them better, frequently, than in nature herself, since in nature nothing is fixed, all is swift, all transient. In nature, also, we seldom behold the features under that propitious aspect ."