# Talk:Droeshout portrait

I read this article while translating it from English to Hebrew, and I thought it was really good and written professionally, so I nominated it to GA. Good luck, Tomer T (talk) 19:56, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Paul B (talk) 15:35, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Those who have crafted this article, most likely in concert with others, have worked hard, and it shows.  I came to this article seeking the answer to one question, and it's likely there may not be one.  Still, I'd like to know which artists knew him while he was alive and could have had an opportunity to capture his likeness in person.  Determining the source of the "subject" for this Droeshout portrait would help determine its authenticity (and I use that word lightly).  Personally, I am troubled by the many assertions that this is one of only two "authentic" portraits of Shakespeare.  Unless it was etched seven or eight years earlier and not revealed until the Folio went to press, it is an egregious misrepresentation to call it "an authentic portrait of W.S."  While the original engraving may be an "authentic Droeshout" (I see in the article, that even that claim is dubious), it is by no means authentic, if it refers to the subject of the portrait.  Any original work of art which copies from another (or others) is no more "authentic" than a paint-by-numbers piece 2nd graders do.  (Actually, they're quite good... all of them.)  For that matter, inasmuch as everything online is a digital reproduction, nothing we see and read as "authentic" is.  (It's easy to prove.. just zoom in and look at the pixels.)  
As I said (and meant), I am impressed with the efforts.  Having read a few sentences about experts trying to identify the source image(s), it shows that some are considering the obvious:  to find those who knew him while he was alive.  I don't care how primitive or unskilled the hands, the depictions they produced would actually be the only "authentic" portraits of William Shakespeare.  Nothing completed posthumously qualifies.
Curiously... his stage showcased only male talent, some of whom would appear in women's costume and perform the roles of women.  No judgment here, but I do believe the arts are right-brain dominated.  Surely, among the thousands who must have acted in his plays, there were a few who were also equally talented portrait artists  (They had to make a living by day, didn't they?)  I am incredulous nothing has ever turned up.  Isn't anyone else? Hogident (talk) 03:17, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

I return to share a chuckle.  I just looked at the Wiki article about his stone-carved effigy in his childhood church in Stratford-upon-Avon.  It's a curiosity that there are so many artist's renderings of a sculpture not intended to look even remotely like him; and yet, still none of him.  Anywhere.  (If Becker's were an actual portrait, the world, most certainly, would have known by now.) Happy hunting! Hogident (talk) 03:31, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

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