Whistler face swap

Where this one comes from

Whistler painted this around 1872, the year after the portrait of his mother, and titled it as an arrangement in grey rather than as a portrait of himself, because he insisted a picture was an organisation of colour and not a record of a person. In 1878 he sued the critic John Ruskin over a review, won, was awarded a farthing in damages, and was bankrupted by the costs. The panel is in Detroit.

What is in the picture

Almost no colour at all: a dark coat against a dark ground, a pale face, a white cuff, and the famous white lock in otherwise black curly hair. A hat brim cuts a shadow across the upper part of the head. He is turned slightly away and looking back over the shoulder, which is a stagey pose done with a completely straight face. The paint is thin and worked wet into wet, so the edges of everything dissolve softly into the background.

When people use it

For taking yourself seriously on purpose. It suits an artist statement, a manifesto, a bio line, and every joke about being misunderstood by people with no taste.

How your face lands in it

Low contrast, low light, a three-quarter turn with the face half in shadow under the hat brim. The template supplies a great deal of mood and takes a certain amount of detail away in exchange: expect the result to be softer and darker than what you upload. The hair and the white streak in it stay put.

Arrangement in Grey: Portrait of the Painter — James McNeill Whistler, c. 1872. James McNeill Whistler died in 1903, so the painting is in the public domain in the United States and Europe and the reproduction adds no rights. Source

Also in: Paintings · Self-portraits · Victorian portraits