Portrait Quotes

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
Oscar Wilde

Feeling, Artist, Sitter

A man's manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Mirror, Manners, Shows

It is not likely that posterity will fall in love with us, but not impossible that it may respect or sympathize; so a man would rather leave behind him the portrait of his spirit than a portrait of his face.
Robert Louis Stevenson

Love, Respect, May

When you start with a portrait and search for a pure form, a clear volume, through successive eliminations, you arrive inevitably at the egg. Likewise, starting with the egg and following the same process in reverse, one finishes with the portrait.
Pablo Picasso

Through, Same, Start

Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.
Samuel Butler

Music, Work, Else

I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.
Salvador Dali

Person, Rather, Grow

The countenance is the portrait of the soul, and the eyes mark its intentions.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

Eyes, Soul, Intentions

There are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk.
Charles Dickens

Two, Serious, Painting

So, did I work with Warhol? I worked with him less on that play then I did on other things. He actually did a portrait of my rabbit and some other stuff. Warhol was definitely... Warhol.
Harvey Fierstein

Work, Him, Play

I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.
Samuel Johnson

Rather, Show, Dog

I leave you my portrait so that you will have my presence all the days and nights that I am away from you.
Frida Kahlo

Away, Leave, Days

To sit for one's portrait is like being present at one's own creation.
Alexander Smith

Present, Creation, Sit

In a portrait, you have room to have a point of view. The image may not be literally what's going on, but it's representative.
Annie Leibovitz

May, Point, View

It took the Metropolitan Museum of Art nearly 50 years to wake up to Pablo Picasso. It didn't own one of his paintings until 1946, when Gertrude Stein bequeathed that indomitable quasi-Cubistic picture of herself - a portrait of the writer as a sumo Buddha - to the Met, principally because she disliked the Museum of Modern Art.
Jerry Saltz

Art, She, Until

It seems to be a law of nature that no man, unless he has some obvious physical deformity, ever is loth to sit for his portrait.
Max Beerbohm

Nature, Law, Seems

And then I went round the corner and there's a Van Gogh portrait, and you just think, well, this is another level. A higher level, actually. I love the Sargent, but it's not the level of Van Gogh.
David Hockney

Love, Another, Actually

I wanted to become a cartoon artist, a portrait artist, and an illustrator. This was my first idea.
Karl Lagerfeld

Become, Wanted, Idea

It takes a long time for a man to look like his portrait.
James Whistler

Time, Long, Takes

A portrait is a painting with something wrong with the mouth.
John Singer Sargent

Wrong, Painting, Mouth

For years, I've had a hankering for the portrait of Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Duplessis. Franklin is credited with so many inventions: the postal system, lightning rods, the constitution. He was a rock star before there was such a thing.
Jon Bon Jovi

Rock, Before, Star

When I was little, we had a Golden Book that had all these Disney characters in one portrait on the first page. My dad used to read from it every night. We'd play this game of find Pluto or find Donald Duck. He'd read us stories and do all the voices. Those are great memories.
Danica McKellar

Great, Dad, Game

There is something uniquely depressing about the fact that the National Portrait Gallery's version of the Barack Obama 'Hope' poster previously belonged to a pair of lobbyists. Depressing because Mr. Obama's Washington was not supposed to be the lobbyists' Washington, the place we learned to despise during the last administration.
Thomas Frank

Hope, Learned, Place

I sometimes find the surface interesting. To say that the mark of a good portrait is whether you get them or get the soul - I don't think this is possible all of the time.
Annie Leibovitz

Time, Good, Find

The most difficult thing for me is a portrait. You have to try and put your camera between the skin of a person and his shirt.
Henri Cartier-Bresson

Person, Try, Put

My job as a portrait photographer is to seduce, amuse and entertain.
Helmut Newton

Job, Seduce, Entertain

The progression of roles you take strings together a portrait of an actor, but it's a completely random process.
Meryl Streep

Together, Actor, Process

What I do feel is that 'Up in the Air' is the most indicative film of 2009. It is the portrait of 2009.
Jason Reitman

Film, Air, Indicative

I love prints of skulls and bones and have some taxidermy - a crow and a rabbit - to remind me of home. I like art and have a big portrait of Bjork.
Ellie Goulding

Love, Home, Art

I used to try to draw my girlfriends. I think one of the most romantic things that anybody can do is draw a portrait of the person you love.
Nick Carter

Love, Romantic, Person

I have a portrait of Saint Thomas More in my office.
Andrew Cuomo

Office, Saint, Thomas

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