"'May your nonexistence be so strong that it becomes a form of being,' says @prof.oddfellow. Who, not only has the secret to eternal youth, but whose presence cannot be detected by arcade fortune telling machines. Unsurprisingly his likeness was difficult to capture in paint. I think I've done it, or have I?" asks artist Clare Simmonds.
A: It's been said that an ideal portrait depicts its subject as solitary and somewhat mysterious. "The ideal portrait should, of course, be at once a presentment of a human being grasped with perspicacity and commemorated with easy mastery, and a picture whose forms, balance, colour, and lighting form a whole that gives pleasure and satisfaction, whether the original be known or not" (E. H., 1901). We see this portrait as a painted premonition. The expression perfectly captures the experience of a "funny feeling." There are zero Google results for how much an aura weighs, but we detect a slight stoop to the figure in the portrait. It's been said that "psychic weight" is something imponderable and that it comes from opening the body to grief, turning one's face to one's own life, absorbing the failures one's parents and homeland have suffered, and handling what alchemy calls "lead." With this portrait, you've transmuted the lead to gold.
