What this art form recited for us
The act or art of creating a portrait was the theme of Day 19 of the #21DayPhotoChallenge.
Portraiture
Portraiture is an art form that saw its dawn from tubes of paint, molds of sculpture as well as drawings. In the journey to its sunset, it was exhibited through what its creators saw through a (camera) lens.
The art of portraiture dates back to five thousand years ago. Our oldest record of the portrayal of people’s facial features lies in Egyptian archives. Portraiture allowed its creators to document what rested on a person’s face. In addition, its creators were able to create a visual of someone’s emotional state. It has never just been about portraying how one looks.
A portrait functioned as a pen that wrote a story about its sitter. The person holding the pen could be the sitter in self-portraiture or its creator holding the pen to tell the story that they are reading from the sitter sitting opposite to them. This is what we think is beautiful about the art of portraiture; it reveals that our faces are not just arrangements of our facial features.
READ OUR ARTICLE ON #21DAYPHOTOCHALLENGESA:http://sacreativenetwork.co.za/2021/04/21dayphotochallengesa/
Portraiture in the #21DayPhotoChallengeSA
Poetry is a form of storytelling. It is exactly what these portraits recited for us.
What lies in our eyes
What lies in our eyes
Is every moment we saw beauty in the sunrise
And what came from our mothers’ eyes every time they saw their own die.
What gives us sight,
Gifts the world the light
To capture what rests in our eyes.
These are the portraits that recited poetry written in the sitters’ eyes for us. There is so much that our eyes have to say about who we are.
What poem did you hear being recited in any of these portraits?
Our pain
Our pain is arched on our backs.
It follows us in our tracks.
Why does it seem like the one thing we never lack?
There is a voice that cries in these portraits. Its poetry is one of pain and sorrow. Why do we all have pain? Why is pain a constant reminder in all our stories?
What is the poem recited from these portraits for you?
