There’s a reason why every American president has had his portrait painted, why royals and aristocratic families posed as a matter of routine and why captivating women like Mona Lisa have been preserved on canvasses over time.
Portraits go deeper than photographs in capturing our likeness by leaving something to the imagination. And the great ones contain an impressionistic quality that elevates even the small town mayor or bank president to a work of art—a work either cherished and handed down by a family or tossed out and left to surface in a flea market sale. Guess it all depended on the personality.
I sat for Constantine Chatov in Atlanta during my CNN days in the early 90s. He lived in my building and was part of the Chatov portrait painter dynasty that included his older brother, Roman (who gave Isadora Duncan the scarf that ended up strangling her) and nephew Marc (who continues to teach master classes and paint commissions in Atlanta).
I adored Constantine at the time and posing was an unforgettable experience. I’ve always had a weakness for attractive unconventional men who dwell in their art studios, and this was no different—despite the fact this one was eighty.
A trained concert pianist, he would take breaks from painting and work the keys of his baby grand while I sipped vodka and took in his condo walls peopled with large oil works of sublime naked women partially cloaked with shawls and aging debutantes with blond pageboys and forlorn expressions. The place had that intoxicating odor of paint and turpentine and remained fairly dark with its heavy curtains drawn and deep red Bukhara rugs blanketing the cold hardwood floors. Always on the kitchen counter, a box of stale donuts and cans of salmon.
The painter complained salmon didn’t taste as good as it once did. Yes, he was a funny one, never married, highly sought after by social circles, an adorable little man. I once asked him for pain relievers for a headache. “Take two,” he insisted. I asked what would happen if I only took one. “That, I couldn’t tell you,” he responded in a thick Russian accent.
If I was unavailable for one reason or another and couldn’t pose, he would take revenge on my portrait by inserting an unflattering smile or smirk that didn’t resemble me at all. I would have to insist he redo it, and this became a game until the masterpiece was finished. At $5,000 it was more than a struggling journalist could afford, so my parents generously purchased it as a gift for my thirtieth birthday. I had an unveiling party in my rented condo with champagne and friends and Constantine as the guest of honor. He died a few years later after terrible bouts with pneumonia.
Today, the portrait hangs in my living room and I aspire to have similar portraits done of my daughters some day. I approached Mark Chatov on the subject after recently reuniting on Facebook, and he informed me he now commands $15,000 for a small size portrait. Wow. That’s a year of high school tuition. That’s a car. That’s ... not even an option.
I have to wonder if we are willing to sacrifice meals out, trendy ensembles from Brass Plum and the sorely needed repainting of the house trim to have our beloved daughters immortalized in pigment particles suspended in linseed oil? Portraits can add great personality to our rooms, tell the story of our heritage, stroke our nostalgic hears, arouse our sensibilities and sustain the beauty of a culture, but at what cost?
