 
when artists paint portraits, they usually try for more than simply a 
physical likeness. 
they try to tell us something about a person's character or type of life, 
what it is that makes that person interesting. 
one way an artist can do this is by representing the subjects of portraits 
in their usual surroundings. 
for example, the nineteenth-century french painter edgar degas portrayed 
one of his friends, another painter named james tissot, by posing the man in 
his own studio (plate 1). 
to make tissot seem to be part of the room around him, degas placed his 
figure in the background. 
the paintings we see are all by tissot, except for a small 
sixteenth-century portrait of a german prince on the wall just above his left 
shoulder. 
degas placed this compact little picture in the very center of his 
composition to exaggerate, by contrast, tissot's casual pose and the slimness 
of his figure. 
not all portraits are so informal, however. 
for example, sir anthony van[dyck's seventeenth-century picture of philip, 
lord wharton (plate 2) was intended not as an intimate likeness of a friend, 
but as a stately portrait of a young nobleman. 
since lords and ladies of this period loved to play at being shepherds, 
van[dyck has shown this young english lord holding a shepherd's staff, and he 
has painted every fold and wrinkle of his costume in exquisite detail. 
notice that the main areas of light tones, the patch of sky, the orange 
drapery, and the highlights along the sleeve of the jacket, all lead directly 
to the face. 
