Portrait of the Dean of the Faculty

This is my most recent commission, oil on panel 80×60 cm.

I made some adjustments during the painting process. Of course, it is almost always the case, but this time the changes were  bigger. The chair color was actually dark grey, much like the color of the sitter’s suit, which might have made the painting look dull. I adjusted as well the height of the chair back in order to create a horizontal (top edge in line with sitter’s eyes) which crosses the (invented) vertical corner in the background. That device helps emphasize the face, which is now even more in composition’s focus. I painted the chair dark reddish color and decided to also adjust a bit the color of the sitter’s suit, so it’s on the bluish side, instead of neutral gray.
I posed the sitter this way because I wished to create strong diagonals in order to avoid static, stiff look which is more often than not evident in representational portraits like this. I hope I succeeded in balancing it with the contrived horizontals and verticals.