By Michael Gormley
Paul Wyse, The Right Reverend Mark S. Sisk, oil on linen, 60 x 40 in.
Some paintings focus on arabesque lines, clean edges and finely modeled forms. They call to mind the crisp cold mountain air. Wende Caporale, a talented artist represented by Portraits, Inc. and recently featured on this blog, privileges this artistic view. Her artistic lineage reaches back to the Florentine masters of the Quattrocento whose overarching pictorial concern for aesthetic design and stylized rendering the Italians called disegno.
Other works situate their subjects in deep illusionistic space and bathe them in a gentle dusk-like light that diffuses sculptural forms and hard lines. Rembrandt’s genius exploited this atmospheric lighting to achieve striking emotive effects that ranged from the romantic to the miraculous. In homage to this great master, Paul Wyse, the artist whose portrait is pictured here, depicts this same spirit-like light – an adept choice that imagines the flickering candlelight of cathedrals and evening vespers. Renaissance Italians termed this technique sfumato – from the word sfumare – which in English translates as “to evaporate like smoke.” Leonardo da Vinci is credited with being the first to see and paint hazy atmospheric effects and for inspiring a shift in artistic production that aimed for a naturalistic and highly illusionistic realism – a stark contrast to the highly stylized works that predominated the medieval period.
Wyse remarks on the considerable technical challenges inherent to working with a sfumato technique: “The portrait’s optical effects are achieved using an indirect painting process – which is methodical and can’t be rushed. I apply numerous paint layers that vary in translucency – the topmost paint layer being the thinnest. A warm glow is created as light rays penetrate these paint layers and reflect off the painting substrate back to the viewer. The effect is similar to light passing through stained glass – and the overall effect is highly luminous if done correctly. The golden glow and rich jewel-like tones seen in Rembrandt’s work were produced this way. Art historians believe Rembrandt perfected this method by studying the Venetian School masters Giorgione and Titian – he is reported to have owned at least one Titian.”
Wyse’s most recent portrait evinces a similar manifestation of artistic lineage and his own striving for mastery; the work’s fine shading and imperceptible transitions between colors and tones offer a palatial realism that captures the sitter’s likeness within a compelling narrative symbolizing the sitter’s ecclesiastical avocation. His subject, the Right Reverend Mark S. Sisk, the XV Bishop of New York, is seen in crimson vestments holding a Bible and emerging from the gothic shadows and half light of St. John the Divine Cathedral. One imagines Sisk has just finished delivering an inspired sermon. He positively glows – as should a Renaissance man walking in the light of God and gifted with an inner faith tempered by reason.
Like Sisk, Wyse represents the new Renaissance man; he is an accomplished classical pianist and largely self-taught as a painter. A recent discovery for Portraits, Inc., his painting “Étude en rouge” graced the promotional materials announcing the Portraits, Inc. exhibition at the Salmagundi Club. A review of that work can be found here. For more information about Wyse, or to commission a portrait by him or other Portraits, Inc. artists, please contact us.
Michael Gormley is a painter, writer, curator and regular contributor to the Portraits, Inc. blog. Gormley is the former editor of American Artist magazine and most recently created the fine art catalog for Craftsy--an online education platform.
Portraits, Inc. was founded in 1942 in New York on Park Avenue. Over its 70-year history, Portraits, Inc. has carefully assembled a select group of the world’s foremost portrait artists offering a range of styles and prices. Recognized as the industry leader, Portraits, Inc. provides expert guidance for discerning clients interested in commissioning fine art portraits.
