Newman A. Great British: Photographs

Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1979. — 122 p.A really interesting book with unique photos accompanied by potted biographies and comments by Arnold Newman.Of all forms of art, portraiture is one of the most elusive, and one of the most difficult for any artist effectively to master. This may well sound a paradoxical thing to say in view of the number of artists who practice it. But I think they would agree with me. It is partly that the human face, though of compelling interest to every one of us, remains the most mysterious of all subjects; and partly that, once an artist has achieved a likeness which he thinks credible, the pictorial means at his disposal - design, colour, line, associations — for amplifying that likeness, for defining the individuality of posture, gestures, movement, above all for revealing personality, are severely contained. It is not surprising that portraiture soon becomes trapped in formulae. For an example, one only has to look at the stock poses of the 17th or 18th centuries. Such formal limitations do not apply to anything like the same extent to landscape or to other genres.