Beauty Perceived and Inspired

A woman's beauty has different effects on different people.  This is especially evident where artists are concerned.  With some, a woman's beauty is perceived on the basis of who she is.  This, of course, assumes that one is acquainted with said woman on some level.  Now, if one is not acquainted with her, and is left with only what is observed about her, then, one's perception of her becomes confined to the inside of one's head.  There is no real contribution from the woman herself in terms of interaction.  There is only her appearance to the beholder.  Beyond this there is only the reaction of the beholder to what is perceived.  People being people, this is something that will be different from one beholder to another.  There are those for whom such things are superficial at best.  There is only the physical appearance, and from such an artist, that's what will likely be shown in any rendition the the woman's image.  Then there are those whose perception of the woman's beauty is affected by who they know the woman to be.  Their acquaintance with her has a direct affect on how she is perceived.  This too is likely to manifest itself, in some way, in the artist's rendition of her.  

When said woman is not known and there is no acquaintance with her to speak of, the effect her beauty has on the beholder can be, in many cases, much more profound.  Being acquainted with said woman can sometimes be a hindrance to any level of inspiration.  Reality can be something of a damper.  This, of course, depends on the individual.  There are those for whom inspiration comes into play regardless of pre-existing acquaintance.  Some may say that this will be the case for any artist in any situation.  From what I have seen and heard, inspiration is something manifested with respect to skill more so than anything else.  The artist's ability to "capture" the woman's image is enhanced according to the level of "inspiration" experienced.  

For myself, however, I've always been possessed of the disposition of profound effect in the face of encountering a woman's beauty.  I'm the guy that gets stopped in his tracks.  I know that can be said for most if not all men, but, there aren't that many men that slip into semi-consciousness and tunnel vision when confronted with an impressive beauty.  They may leer and stare, but the effect is not that profound.  Seeking a way to communicate something of the effect that a woman's beauty can have on me, I came up with the idea of embellishing my portraits.  In the development of these embellishments, I try to use elements and images that speak to what's going on in my own head with respect to the effect that said woman's beauty has had on me.  In other words, the typical mechanics of inspiration.  But, it's not just about skill (whatever there is that I have of it) or its enhancement.  With respect to the embellishments, it's about composition and (for lack of a better or more correct term) graphic communication.  In a portrait, I want to frame her image in a collection of images that I think best communicates what I perceive in her beauty.  A collection of images that communicates the effect her beauty has had on me.  It's kind of like a guess at what her personality would be like if the beauty I perceived when I looked at her actually, in some way, indicated who she was as a person.                      

I've done drawings in the past that involve what could be considered elaborate embellishments.  But, those drawings were about an attempt to use a woman to communicate what might be considered an abstract concept.  A concept that generally is not about the woman or her image, but is about a state of mind or a way of life which the image of the woman is actually being used to represent either centrally or in part.  The embellished portraits that I'm endeavoring to develop now are simply about the woman's beauty.  No concepts or representations, abstract of otherwise.  Just the woman's beauty and the power it possesses.  (Such as it is.)  

With respect to this kind of portraiture and the embellishments I've been adding to them, some measure of commercial use did cross my mind.  I'm of the opinion that such embellishments could make a nice addition to gift or personal portraiture.  I haven't gotten a lot of requests for this sort of thing, but, then there haven't been  enough requests, generally speaking, to draw any conclusions about how well these embellishments are going over.  (Besides, this sort of thing seems a bit gender specific.  It seems only fitting for female portraits.  But that's just me.)  So, for now, it's pretty much just about me and the joy I get out of rendering the exquisite beauty of women.