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Portrait Quotes

Lines on portraiture, self-image, and capturing a place.

These lines treat a portrait as more than a likeness, whether it's a classic novel exploring how vanity clashes with a hidden inner self, or a photographer describing years spent capturing the planet from above as a kind of collective portrait. A filmmaker adds that a city on screen often reflects the maker's own view rather than a strict document of reality. See Artist for related creative reflections.

The landscape is like being there with a powerful personality and I'm searching for just the right angles to make that portrait come across as meaningfully as possible.

Quotes by Galen Rowell

The length of exposure (one minute in sunlight) is still too long for the portrait. It was fifteen minutes when I first began my work. Progress may continue.

Quotes by Gabriel Lippmann

When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a portrait painter. As I got to be older, I realized that as a portrait painter I wouldn't be able to support a goldfish.

Quotes by Fred Gwynne

In art, there is no need for color; I see only light and shade. Give me a crayon, and I will paint your portrait.

Quotes by Francisco Goya

I had no portrait, now, but am small, like the wren; and my hair is bold, like the chestnut bur; and my eyes, like the sherry in the glass, that the guest leaves.

Quotes by Emily Dickinson

My earliest drawing is a supposed Carracci. It wasn't very expensive, I guess, because they don't know if it's a real Carracci. But it has all these seals on it of people who've owned it, and one of the great...

Quotes by Ellsworth Kelly

At the unveiling at the White House of the presidential portrait, President Bush pointed out that Hillary Clinton was the first sitting Senator in history to have her portrait hanging in the White House.

Quotes by Eleanor Clift

When I paint a person, his enemies always find the portrait a good likeness.

Quotes by Edvard Munch

Since Obama has expressed admiration for the portrait of Abraham Lincoln that Doris Kearns Goodwin paints in 'Team of Rivals,' he could do the 16th president one better: He should name Hillary Clinton as his running mate in 2012. That...

Quotes by Douglas Wilder

When I take a black-and-white portrait, it's not particularly meant to please you. It's meant to talk to you; it's meant to shame you. It's meant to scream out at you, and it has a message.

Quotes by Don McCullin

It is done... the precious portrait placed in the hands of the gentlemen for safe keeping.

Quotes by Dolley Madison

Every time I want to impress someone about samples and hip-hop, I play 'Portrait of Tracy.' It's one of the greatest bass players ever doing a whole composition with only the two harmonics of electric bass; then a three-second loop...

Quotes by Diplo

When FDR died in 1945, he was still paralyzed from the waist down. After he died, his portrait was put on the dime. Through his illness, he went out of his way to minimize his difficulties. Of the thousands of...

Quotes by David Oshinsky

The important thing is for the characters to feel real, and to be given the humanity they are due. That granting of humanity is what separates a full portrait from a stereotype.

Quotes by David Levithan

And then I went round the corner and there's a Van Gogh portrait, and you just think, well, this is another level. A higher level, actually. I love the Sargent, but it's not the level of Van Gogh.

Quotes by David Hockney

A house is very much like a portrait. I cannot disconnect houses from people. The thought of arrangement, the curves and straight lines. It gives an indication of the character at the heart of it.

Quotes by Christian Louboutin

When having my portrait painted I don't want justice, I want mercy.

Quotes by Billy Hughes

In Edna, I created a satiric portrait of my hometown of Melbourne, a large provincial English city paradoxically in far Southeast Asia. She's a theatrical figure, related to vaudeville in some respects. She inhabits a world in which there are...

Quotes by Barry Humphries

Walking down the street with a portrait of the Dalai Lama will get one immediately arrested in most parts of China. Tiny medallions are routinely confiscated and destroyed.

Quotes by Barbara Demick

Too much of Indian writing in English, it seemed to me, consisted of middle-class people writing about other middle-class people - and a small slice of life being passed off as an authentic portrait of the country.

Quotes by Aravind Adiga

Frequently Asked Questions

What angle do these Portrait quotes take?
They treat portraiture broadly, from classic literature about vanity and identity to photography and film that capture a place rather than just a face.
Why do people search for portrait quotes?
Artists, photographers, and writers often look for language that frames what a portrait is really trying to say beyond mere likeness.
Is there a literary reference in this collection?
Yes, one line references a classic novel's exploration of vanity clashing with a person's true inner self.
Does this set include quotes about photographing places?
One quote describes years spent photographing the planet from above, treating the whole project as a large-scale image of the world itself.
What related page pairs well with this one?
Try Artist for more on the creative process behind capturing an image.

Across mediums, a portrait becomes less about accuracy and more about intention, what the creator wants the subject to say. Continue with Life or City for related perspectives on capturing a place or a moment.