Quantities such as likeness, psychology in the dramatic sense, characterisation, responsiveness to the sitter and so forth simply have no part to play in the modernist painter's adventure - and anyway, the camera can take care of all that so much better. In J-P. Sartre's novel Le Nausee' the central character Roquetin finds himself one Sunday afternoon in the museum in the provincial city he is living in. Parrottin put up a good fight. But suddenly his look burned out, the picture grew dim. I was struck when I first read this because it seemed to describe exactly an experience I had had, not just in front of third-rate paintings.
Portraits do burn out.
Its as though one's recognition of the individual human presence has a limited life. It runs out. The picture dies, leaving one with an empty effigy with a grimace frozen on its face. One could argue that these qualities of life-likeness are inimical to whatever else it is we go to pictures for. It is one of the most austere images he ever made.