photographic
portraits have a great social value, not only because they fairly
indicate the _personnel_ of their models, but because they so
faithfully represent textures that we can form a very good idea from a
_carte de visite_ of the social position of the sitter, and
incidentally, from the cut, style, and material of the dress, a very
good notion also of their moral calibre.

Many things are permissible in photographic portraits--which may be
retaken every few months--that would justly be deprecated in a
finished oil portrait destined to go down with houses and lands to
unborn generations. In such a picture any intrusion of the imagination
is an impertinence if made at the slightest expense of truth.

The great value of an oil portrait is this: the divine, almost
intangible light of expression hovering over the face is seized on by
living skill and intellect, and imprisoned in colors. The sitter is
not taken in one special moment, when his eyes are fixed and his
muscles rigid, but in a free study of many hours the characteristics
of the face are learned, and some felicitous expression caught and
fixed forever. This is what gives portrait painting its special value,
and drives ordinary photographic portraits out of the realms of art
into those of mechanism.

Artists have various ways of treating their sitters. Some throw them
into a Sir-Joshua-like attitude, and put in a Gainsborough background.
Others compass the face all over, and map it out like a chart, taking
elevations of every mole and dimple. But whenever an artist feels
unsafe away from his compasses, and cannot trust himself, sitters
should not trust him.

There is a real pleasure in sitting to a master in his art, a real
weariness and disgust in sitting to a tyro. It must be remembered that
not only is the best expression to be caught, but that the _features_
of any face vary so much under physical changes and mental moods that
their differences may actually be measured with a foot-rule. An
ordinary artist will measure these distances; an extraordinary artist
will catch their subtle effects, and will draw the features as well as
the expression at their very best.

A really fine oil portrait should look as well near by as it does at a
distance.

Suffer no artist to leave out blemishes which contribute to the
character of the original; ugly or pretty, unless a portrait is a
likeness, it is worthless. There are very clever artists who cannot
paint a