Sight-size
Leonardo da Vinci said that to be able to see a canvas or panel as a whole - in one glance of the eye - one has to stand at a distance of three times its greatest length.
Since the Rennaissance, the dominating idea has been to create a unified and harmonious whole of the canvas or panel. If one can only see the whole from three times the greatest length, it is logical that one also views the painting during the process from that distance. An essential part of Larsson’s approach to painting is sight-size, which has been used for centuries by the great masters of portraiture.
Sight-size is an invaluable way of working to the scale of life, under natural light, whereby the subject and image are viewed side-by-side at a distance. The painter works standing and approaches the canvas repeatedly to convey the impression of the whole, as opposed to a piecemeal rendering of the parts. Knowledge of sight-size is equally important for drawing and painting under the scale of life.
Image © Myscha Oréo
Larsson’s portraits are painted from life through sittings and not from photographs. His dedication to working from life stems from the conviction that in order to paint a portrait with a sense of life you need to have the person in front of you; when working from a photograph, you are imitating an imitation which is not reality itself.
A sight-size oil painting by a past or contemporary master is neither static nor photographic. It manifests a freedom of brushwork that comes into focus when perceived from afar. It is a unique means of attaining truth to nature through individual expression.
In the two-part documentary ‘Urban Larsson’ broadcasted on the Dutch national television network AVROTROS Kunstuur we follow Urban Larsson at different points throughout 2016 and 2017 in Amsterdam, Florence, Stockholm and The Hague. In Florence, for example, we are given an insight into Charles H. Cecil Studios where Larsson regularly teaches life-size portraiture to the advanced students.