Art of the Portrait

Achieving a likeness

An exact copy of a photograph does not make a good portrait.

Gareth has studied the work of the great portrait artists, such as Da Vinci, Donatello, Michelangelo, Titian, Velazquez, Degas, Bronzino, Reynolds, Courbet and others. He has learnt that to create a truly life like portrait certain proportions of the face should be changed from how they appear in a photograph.

Layered agate is the special material that Gareth David Eckley uses for his carvings. This has translucent white layers against a darker background.  Gareth uses the translucency of these layers to create a ‘sfumato’or ‘non finis’ effect which makes the carvings come to life.  The other entrancing quality of cameo portraits is that they alter with movement. So that when worn they appear to be ever changing.

Creating a ‘life-like’ portrait is the goal of my work.

Leonardo Da Vinci solved the problem of how to make portraits seem alive. He realised that the more exactly an artist attempted to copy a subject the less a viewer could imagine that it ever lived and breathed.

With the ‘Mona Lisa,’ Da Vinci deliberately left the corners of her eyes and mouth indistinct. This vagueness of detail, forces the viewer to fill in the missing details to complete the expression of the portrait.

Michelangelo and Donatello used a similar technique called ‘non finito’.With this process, sculptures were carved in a shallow relief style, to appear deeper than they were and to look as if they were coming out of the stone.

These effects are most pronounced when a portrait is viewed in real life. Photographs flatten the image and do not capture the alive nature of a cameo portrait well.