I’ve been looking at Rubens lately, obviously a master. Very accurate depictions, but with plenty of tricks up his sleeve in color, composition, and position.

You might wonder what is the difference between composition and position? This is strictly my position, but it may also be in some book that I haven’t read. Position is the fine tuning of a composition, the tilt of the head, the wideness of the eyes, the slight touch of the fingertips. Position is so intentional, yet if it is done well you rarely notice it. Composition is blatant, large, obvious, yet it also strives to hide.

Making an image allows all sorts of subtle moves, much more complex than, “the eyes follow me around the room”.

Here are a few of my tributes to Rubens…

You might notice that in the original there is a tendency to position “chin down”, also the eyebrows are lowered. Rubens also magnified the eyes in my opinion, unless he happened to only paint women with large eyes.

Some critics have said that Rubens added a few pounds to his models, and preferred a softie form. This also tends to round the face in portraits.

In addition to other choices for these “tributes” I have raised the gaze, shortened the nose, reduced the orbits and eyes, and trimmed the jewels.

Not to make it better, different perhaps. What I really want to know is what are his decisions when making an image.