Women in History

[TyRockwell]

The Mona Lisa WAS smiling!

[shadowmaster]

The Mona Lisa WAS smiling!

What passed for a smile in those days?

[Michelle]

shadowmaster...you're making me wonder and that means I'll spend the weekend trying to find out. I'm not sure whether to thank you or slap you.

[shadowmaster]

Be kind.
Don't hit the shadowmaster.
He is here to protect honest twebbbers.

[Michelle]

heh

[NeilUnreal]

In the modern West, we are familiar primarily with spontaneous and unposed photographs rather than formal portraits, and so we forget there is a difference.

The idea of a "sitting portrait" is that it captures something lasting of the person rather than being a snapshot of an instant in time. A very slight smile or neutral expression are perhaps the best general representations of a person's face. So formal portraits, painted or photographed, do not usually depict the subject with a strong facial expression.

This makes abundant sense, because after all, most of us spend the majority of our time with at most a faint expression on our face. Portraits capture this: the person centered, at rest and being him or herself.

However, our familiarity with unposed photographs has bled over into formal portraiture, so it is common these days to find people smiling widely even in posed photographs. It is even considered de rigeur in many photographic sittings; so much so that "Smile!" is a synonym for "I'm going to take your picture." It still remains less common in formal portrait painting. (Possibly because "Smile for the next six weeks!" sounds a little awkward.")

There is older artwork that depicts people smiling, grimacing, etc., but it is usually aimed at capturing a moment or an event rather than making a portrait. The faces in these paintings tend to be smaller elements in a larger field, and so are less suitable for making the kind of montage in the video.

-Neil

Neil == smart

I'm really just a clever mimic; I simply listen to really smart people and repeat what they say.

[shadowmaster]

You never repeat what the shadowmaster says

and he is deeply offended

[Vigilante]

Who is the chick at :45? Looks like Liv Tyler.

It's weird, I feel like I've seen almost all of those, but I can't say who any of them are.

[NeilUnreal]

"At what is the Mona Lisa smiling?"

"The Shadow knows..."