Happy New Year!
When a sculptor feels pressure to sculpt an exact likeness of its subject, there is a risk of over working the piece and turning the portrait into a flat mechanical design. A portrait sculpture retains its aliveness when there is room for the viewer to experience the sculptor's lively interpretive expression of the piece.
In his essay "Exactitude is not Truth," Matisse argued that in sculpture, conviction comes from the profound feeling that the artist has of his subject, not in the exact copying of the forms or details of the subject. Everything has an "inherent truth" that is separate from its superficial appearance. He believed that this is the only truth that matters, the essential truth that makes the art successful. Matisse stated "What is a portrait? Isn't it a translation of the human sensibility of the person represented?" In striving to create a likeness in form with anatomical exactitude, does the portrait sculptor lose this human sensibility that she/he is trying to portray? Perhaps in the inexactitude, there is freedom for the artist to express personal interpretation and for the observer to experience what it feels like to be looking at the other person. As a portrait becomes more of a "copy" of the subject this feeling is replaced by the over focus on its physical likeness.
To illustrate this point, imagine that you are visiting the wax figurines of celebrities at the Madame Tussaud Museum. As you walk through the museum viewing all of the famous wax figures which are strikingly anatomically correct, you notice that there is a void of emotional feeling about these figures. Even though they are of very famous people, there is no mistaking that the figures are indeed just wax replicas. Then go next door to another museum that is housing portrait sculptures and look at those sculptures that are artistic interpretations of the subject. In comparing the two approaches to portrait sculpture and creating a likeness of the subject, which of the two approaches do you imagine would illicit more emotional curiosity? Well, my guess is that the interpretive portrait sculptures would win hands down because viewing these sculptures challenges ones mind to "experience the experience." In other words, the mind has an opportunity to interpret ambiguity and in doing so is more involved in interpreting on a personal level what they are viewing. The mind turns off when faced with lifeless images such as wax figures, while it fires up when it goes to work interpreting art.
Matisse's portraits (that he created of himself) are not replicas or copies of himself. There is spontaneity and freedom of line and contour which he argued, allowed him to permeate his work with his feeling, his perception of the subject, thus giving the work its life, its essence. Ambiguity seems to engage the brain more intensely, something that the portrait sculptor wants to strive for when creating a portrait of someone. To overwork sculpture by intensely focusing on exactness, the sculptor robs the viewer and herself of the experience to interpret the work as they both see fit.
