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To deliver a
reasonably close physical likeness of Tribini was not a particularly
difficult task for a capable artist, and the real challenge obviously
consisted of providing a more comprehensive psychological portrait of his
projected personality and whimsical being. The very mobility of his face
and gestures, his magician’s aura and the consistency of character of the
shifty-eyed actor-huxter, were the critically important aspects of the
portrait.
Skov’s approach to
this task was based on a series of portrait studies he had made during the
previous two years featuring his wife, sons, nephew and a niece. His
dissection of Tribini’s physiognomy into faceted and planar portions, and
their reassembly into the completed portrait, also references his earlier still-lifes.
The mobility of Tribini’s face and the independence of his shifting eyes
and never stopping mouth, was well matched by the Cubist treatment and its
ability to project movement in the object, which here supports the
rendition of a dynamic, restless individual. This also served to project
Tribini’s illusionist aptitude which Skov tried to do in several different
ways. In one of the portraits, for example, he superimposed the outlines of
a rabbit on Tribini’s top hat, alluding directly to the conjuror's
rabbit-out-of-a-hat trick, and in another he quoted Tribini’s favorite
Latin maxim “Mundus vult decepitur”.
Skov made several
sketches on paper before turning to his easel and oils, and he completed
six paintings of Tribini before he finally concluded he had exhausted the
challenge of the motif. The painting Skov submitted to the jurors of the
competition, was a strong, vivacious, larger than life Neo-cubist portrait
depicting the mustachioed variety artist with his habitual black top hat
and swallowtail coat, and relying for both psychological and dramatic
effect practically only on stark white and black colors. The quintessence
of Tribini, the combination of ultra dynamic show-man and stereotypical,
shifty-eyed charlatan, is captured exquisitely by the Cubist treatment,
projecting the dynamic, multi-faceted facial expression of his continually
turning, mobile face and dominating, darting, penetrating eyes.
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