Resemblance in an Animated Face
A photograph of Kevin McShane (top left) with five self-portraits in the style of different animators.
Can two quite different faces each resemble the artist? The answer is yes, because the visual processes of the brain do not need to see similarity in all features. Your visual cortex is clever and can color in what you cannot see or have not seen. It makes allowances. You may only have glimpsed someone in profile yet can still recognize the person next day head-on. An artist might also change a sitter's nose, sometimes very significantly, but the face still resembles the model even if it now has resemblance to the artist too.1 Malleability is therefore an essential and important characteristic of visual perception. Besides, if the brain only searched for precise similarity between faces we would probably not see family resemblance either, which as we know here is a very important feature in art.
1. For more, see examples under the theme Portraiture and the series of portrait comparisons in Who's Who in Art: 1, Early Netherlandish; 2, Napoleon and French Rulers; 3, British Monarchs; 4, Renaissance Faces and 5, The Artist and His Wife (S. Abrahams, 2007-8).
Posted 14 Jul 2013: PortraitureTheoryVisual Perception
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