Mrs. Patrick Campbell as

Mrs. Patrick Campbell as "Paula Tanqueray"

Solomon J. Solomon

before 1896

The Studio (1896)

“In his portraits, however, Mr. Solomon takes a view which is in many respects different [from paintings like Echo and Narcissus]. For insistence upon the painting of the flesh he substitutes a strong definition of character. He by no means ignores the importance of securing exactness in his rendering of the texture and the modelling of the face; but he aims far more than in his ideal pictures at marking the small differences in forms of feature which go to the making up of a likeness. There is in his portrait painting less than the usual preconception which leads artists to modify the appearance of a sitter to suit their own conviction as to what a face should be like, a conventional view which is more often than not entirely destructive of the personality of the portrait. He carries characterisation at times to considerable lengths, and by a subtle kind of exaggeration emphasises the salient facts in the appearance of the people whom he paints. This manner of treating portraiture is very clearly seen in such a canvas as his large character study of Mrs. Patrick Campbell,” — A. L. Baldry