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Portraying   /pɔrtrˈeɪɪŋ/   Listen
Portraying

noun
1.
A representation by picture or portraiture.  Synonyms: depicting, depiction, portrayal.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Portraying" Quotes from Famous Books



... an intense battle with his body. His dulled senses wished him to swoon and he opposed them stubbornly, his mind portraying unknown dangers and mutilations if he should fall upon the field. He went tall soldier fashion. He imagined secluded spots where he could fall and be unmolested. To search for one he strove against the ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... "census spiritual" of American society. Elenor Murray, in her birth and love and sufferings and desperate end, is represented as pure nature, "essential genius," acting out its fated processes in a world of futile or corrupting inhibitions. But Mr. Masters has less skill at portraying the sheer genius of an individual than at arraigning the inhibitions of the individual's society. When he steps down from his watch-tower of irony he can hate as no other American poet does. His hates, however, do not always pass into poetry; they too frequently remain hard, sullen masses of animosity ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren

... or pathetic incidents lies Ada Cambridge's chief power, as far as her plots are concerned. In A Marked Man it is accompanied by her highest achievements in portraying a variety of well-contrasted character. Fidelis, which opens at the Norfolk village of the earlier novel, and reintroduces the Delavels, contains fewer developed characters, as may also be said of A Marriage Ceremony. But the three novels are equal in the high standard of their ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne

... he came to portraying men, especially great kings, he used a different method. The king's statue was to remain through long ages, when the king himself was dead and Osirified. The artist knew—it was the tradition of his school—what the Osirified dead looked like. Not an individual sculptor, but a traditional wisdom, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... says, "Do not first take food at home," when about to go to an entertainment. Westerhovius seems to think that "ligurio" means, not to "pick daintily," but "to be fond of good eating;" and refers to the Bacchides of Plautus as portraying courtesans of the "ligurient" kind, and finds another specimen in Bacchis in ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... visible in his features. Through a long pause, awful in its uncertainty, they waited, the cold sweat fast gathering on their brows. At length the pause was ended. Archbishop Trolle, chuckling at the near prospect of his revenge, stepped forward and addressed the throne. He began by portraying in ardent language the sufferings he had undergone. He declared that the cathedral at Upsala had been plundered while he was being besieged in Staeket. He dwelt at great length on the wrong which had been done him in the destruction of his ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson

... species of minor biography which may be discriminated; detailing our own life and portraying our own character. The writing our own life has been practised with various success; it is a delicate operation, a stroke too much may destroy the effect of the whole. If once we detect an author deceiving or deceived, it is a livid spot which infects the entire body. To ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... the War Office in August 1914 amounted, it must be confessed, almost to a nightmare. There were huge maps working on rollers in my spacious office, and in particular there was one of vast dimensions portraying what even then was coming to be called the Western Front. During the week or so that elapsed before G.H.Q. of the Expeditionary Force proceeded to the theatre of war, its cream thought fit to spend the hours of ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... and shapes of leaves. They seem endless; and when to these are added the leaves of forest trees, the enchanting maples, beeches, birches, and hosts of others, it may be imagined that young fingers may find ample employment in portraying these, to say nothing of the wild flowers which come on in the New England woods—the early anemones, hepatica, bloodroot, and all the flowery train—as ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... enemy. He took heavy tribute from Blackwood and others for his articles vindicating America, which came to be extravagantly quoted and read. His article for Blackwood on the Five Presidents and the Five Candidates, portraying General Jackson to the life as he afterward proved to be, was translated into most of the European languages. I transcribe another paragraph from an old letter. It is too characteristic to remain unread by ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... probability, during the months in which he wrote (November and December 1793) that he would be executed. His religious testament was prepared with the blade of the guillotine suspended over him,—a fact which did not deter pious mythologists from portraying his death-bed remorse for having written ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... volume printed in 1511, with Latin text and engravings. Desnoyers read the title, "The Apocalypse Illustrated." The engravings were by Albert Durer, a youthful effort, when the master was only twenty-seven years old. The three were fascinated by the picture portraying the wild career of the Apocalyptic horsemen. The quadruple scourge, on fantastic mounts, seemed to be precipitating itself with a ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... and rules of procedure for a country where there were no courts or legislation, and where he had to administer justice according to his own lights. In the midst of his thousand avocations he found time to write a series of novels portraying the manners and superstitions of India, and depicting the various epochs of its history, with a fidelity and liveliness that have gained for these works a wide popularity. Yet perhaps the strongest impression made by this ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... something, indeed, in comparison with which even Chetwynde itself was as nothing? No. In his inexperience and thoughtlessness he would have looked with amazement upon any one who would have suggested that there might be a drawback to the happiness which he was portraying before his mind. Yet surely this thing came most severely upon him. He gave up the most, for he gave himself. To save Chetwynde, he was unconsciously selling his own soul. He was bartering his life. All his future depended upon this hasty act of a moment. The happiness of the mature man was ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... passion. In conclusion we may say, that, in the combination of accurate observation, strong sense, and delicate spiritual perception,—in the union of humor and pathos, of shrewdness and sentiment,—and in the power of seizing character in its vital inward sources, and of portraying its outward peculiarities,—"The Pearl of Orr's Island" does not yield to any book which Mrs. Stowe has heretofore ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... Scott's success in portraying the character of Mary Stuart in "The Abbot" fired him with the desire of doing likewise with her great rival Elizabeth; and although history has modified his picture of the English Queen, the portrait still remains a vivid and in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... the popularity of their subject, were published in the local newspapers. Perhaps only a few of them were good, but one at least achieved success, and was recited at all charity bazaars, concerts, and theatrical entertainments given in the ensuing year. One couplet alone shall be here quoted, portraying as it does in graphic phrase the national suspense during those weeks of prolonged crisis when telegram after telegram continued to pour monotonous negation on the hopes of ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... tale portraying the exciting adventures of the Gingerbread Man and his comrade, Chick the Cherub, in the "Palace of Romance," "The Land of the Mifkets," "Hiland and Loland," etc. The book is delightfully pictured by John R. Neill, illustrator of OZMA OF OZ and ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum

... Candor of Its Writers. In portraying its heroes, the Bible does not attempt any gloss. Their faults are neither covered up nor condoned, but condemned. This is unlike all ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell

... at an early age to Vermont, where he was connected with the press at Burlington, Woodstock, and Montpelier. He published a volume of poems in 1848, written in a happy lyric and ballad style, and faithfully portraying rural life ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... the great and venerated personality of Wordsworth as a sort of painter's model; one from which this or the other particular feature may be selected and turned to account. Had I intended more—above all such a boldness as portraying the entire man—I should not have talked about 'handfuls of silver and bits of ribbon.' These never influenced the change of politics in the great poet—whose defection, nevertheless, accompanied as it was by a regular face-about of his special party, was, to my private apprehension, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... it instantly confessed that from the very beginning this divine Teacher exhibited qualities that kindled in men an enthusiasm that amounted to transcendent delight. The time was when scholars attempted to explain His influence over the multitude by portraying Him with a halo of light about His head. Fortunately these ideas that robbed men of all fellowship with their divine brother have perished, and now we know that there was nothing unusual about His appearance, nor did any effulgent ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis

... borrowing from us our flexibility. We do not render it more complicated; on the contrary, it simplifies us. Here, as we shall see later on in the concluding section of this study, lies the essential difference between comedy and drama. A drama, even when portraying passions or vices that bear a name, so completely incorporates them in the person that their names are forgotten, their general characteristics effaced, and we no longer think of them at all, but rather of the ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson

... went upstairs and spent a pleasant evening. He finished the Lookalofts, greatly to the delight of his sisters, though the manner of portraying their decollete dresses was not the most refined. Finding how matters were going, he by degrees allowed it to escape from him that he had not pressed his suit upon the widow ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... begins with the first signs of the reaction against the influence of France, agreeably portraying the awakening of Swiss consciousness, and the gradual development of the enlightened patriotism that impelled Swiss writers to lay aside mere courtly elegance of diction for their own more terse ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... result of such religious life as we have been portraying? The common and more ignorant people accept without very much questioning the teachings and practices which we have explained. The better educated people, especially the men, have lost confidence in the priesthood. ...
— Brazilian Sketches • T. B. Ray

... is Adelaide, whom Nattier loved to paint, portraying her sometimes as a lightly clad goddess, sometimes sitting demurely in a pretty frock. Good Nattier! there is a later portrait of himself in complacent middle age surrounded by his wife and children; but I like to think that, ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd

... I confess for me, "Dona Perfecta" is not realistic enough—realistic as it is; for realism at its best is not tendencious. It does not seek to grapple with human problems, but is richly content with portraying human experiences; and I think Senora Pardo-Bazan is right in regarding "Dona Perfecta" as transitional, and of a period when the author had not yet assimilated in its fullest meaning the faith ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos

... Pieve, he painted the wall where the high-altar is, and the Chapel of S. Maria della Neve; and in the old Company of S. Giovanni de' Peducci he made many stories of that Saint, which to-day are covered with whitewash. In the Church of S. Domenico, likewise, he painted the Chapel of S. Cristofano, portraying there from nature the Blessed Masuolo, who is liberating from prison a merchant of the Fei family, who caused that chapel to be built; which Blessed Masuolo, as prophet, predicted many misadventures to ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari

... imagination are used in portraying the greatness of Deva-Nahusha. For a time he had sovereign control of affairs in Meru; he conquered the seven dwipas, and led his armies through all the known countries of the world; by means of matchless ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... is a fermentation in the treacherous gulf of fire; it discharges itself with raging force, and away over all the plantations of men drives the wild stream in frightful devastation.—WALLENSTEIN. Thou art portraying thy father's heart; as thou describest, even so is it shaped in his entrails, in this black hypocrite's breast. O, the art of hell has deceived me! The Abyss sent up to me the most spotted of the spirits, the most skilful in lies, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... openly rejoice in his success, and to look up unabashed when the resplendent glories of his character were brought before her. None but Edwin made her feel her exclusion from her soul's only home, by dwelling on his gentle virtues; by portraying the exquisite tenderness of his nature, which seemed to enfold the objects of his love in his heart of hearts. When Helen thought on these discourses she would sigh, but it was a sigh of resignation, and she loved to meditate on the words which Edwin had carelessly ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... were conscious of life. Eddie's establishment was a long, white-plastered room with a pressed-steel ceiling and an unswept floor. On the walls were billiard-table-makers' calendars and a collection of cigarette-premium chromos portraying bathing girls. The girls were of lithographic complexions, almost too perfect of feature, and their lips were more than ruby. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... smoky atmosphere surrounded by a merry and joking throng of men playing dominoes and 'fast.' One day I stared at its common wall-paper representing antique subjects, which in some inexplicable way recalled a certain water-colour by Genelli to my mind, portraying 'The education of Dionysos by the Muses.' I had seen it at the house of my brother-in-law Brockhaus in my young days, and it had made a deep impression on me at the time. At this same place I conceived the first ideas of my Kunstwerk der ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... especially our own, are psychological.(164) But the advantages of the mathematical mode of expression diminish as the facts to which it is applied become more complicated. This is true even in the ordinary psychology of the individual. How much more, therefore, in the portraying of national life! Here the algebraic formulae would soon become so complicated, as to make all further progress in the operation next to impossible.(165) Their employment, especially in a science whose sphere it is, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... "With thy permission I will make thee a saddle, that thou mayest ride on it and see the comfort thereof." And quoth he, "Do so." So quoth I to him, "Furnish me with some wood," which being brought, I sought me a clever carpenter and sitting by him showed him how to make the saddle-tree, portraying for him the fashion thereof in ink on the wood. Then I took wool and teased it and made felt of it, and, covering the saddle-tree with leather, stuffed it and polished it and attached the girth and stirrup leathers; after which I fetched a blacksmith and described ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... the mental calibre of those for whom the books were primarily intended must be constantly borne in mind. He attained a splendid fulfilment of his own theories, employing the moujik's expressive vernacular in portraying his homely wisdom, religious faith, and goodness of nature. Sometimes the prevailing simplicity of style and motive is tinged with a vague colouring of oriental legend, but the personal accent is marked throughout. No similar achievement in the beginning Mr. Chertkov ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy

... the story of the journey of a man named Christian the Pilgrim, who travels from the City of Destruction to the Holy City. On this journey Christian is beset by all manner of terrors, temptations, and evils. The story is an allegory, portraying life and its struggles if one attempts to live righteously. Its language is that of the Bible. Its dialogue and characters seem real, and its ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... apart from any conscious effort of my own, divided itself into two kinds of gunpackers: the authorized and the others. I concluded that there would be less trouble, less "lost motion"—that was a phrase learned, and an idea applied in the old-fashioned composing-room—less lost motion, in portraying a lawful gun toter than in justifying an outlaw; and the Goodwin part was therefore to be either a soldier or a sheriff. I have said that he was thin, graceful—and he was, but he wasn't particularly erect. He was especially free from any suggestion of "setting-up:" sheriff ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: In Mizzoura • Augustus Thomas

... to be an analysis of the individual, and it was not written with the intention of advocating or criticising his political policies. It was meant to be a simple, straightforward, yet complete biography of the most interesting personality of our day. Its aim is to present a life of action by portraying the varied dramatic scenes in the career of a man who still has the enthusiasm of a boy, and whose energy and faith have illustrated before the world the spirit of Young America."—From ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... feel the emotions I express when singing a role? Yes, I can say that I endeavor to throw myself absolutely into the part I am portraying; but that I always do so with equal success cannot be expected. So many unforeseen occurrences may interfere, which the audience can never know or consider. One may not be exactly in the mood, or in the best of voice; the house may not be a congenial space, ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower

... of each was spent in praying For blessings on his own unworthy head, 10 The other half in fearfully portraying Where certain folks would go when they were dead; This system of exchanges—there's no saying To what more solid barter 'twould have led, But that a river, vext with boils and swellings At rainy times, kept peace ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... how to write correctly is nothing—you must know something worth recording. To paint is nothing—you must know what you are portraying. Velasquez had become acquainted with humanity, and gotten on intimate terms with life. He had haunted the waysides and markets to good purpose; he had laid the foundation of those qualities which characterize his best work: mastery of expression, penetration into character, the ability ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... combination of tender curves and spheric softness that ever stood for woman; yet if the lip have a certain fulness that hints of the flesh, if the brow be insincere, if in the minutest particular the physical beauty suggests a moral ugliness, that sculptor — unless he be portraying a moral ugliness for a moral purpose — may as well give over his marble for paving-stones. Time, whose judgments are inexorably moral, will not accept his work. For, indeed, we may say that he who has not yet perceived how artistic beauty and moral beauty are convergent lines which ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... of sight. Clifford, muttering, "Yes, I was the cause of their apprehension; it was I who was sought; it is but fair that I should strike a blow for their escape before I attempt my own," continued his course till he came to the door of a public-house. The sign of a seaman swung aloft, portraying the jolly tar with a fine pewter pot in his hand, considerably huger than his own circumference. An immense pug sat at the door, lolling its tongue out, as if, having stuffed itself to the tongue, it was forced to turn that useful member ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... wise philosophy illuminated with the sparkling wit for which she was renowned cannot be conveyed by quotations. "A few years ago," she said, "a famous poet roused the compassion of the world by portraying the tragedy of hopeless toil by the Man with the Hoe. He might have found nearer home a better illustration of the work that is never done, that has no inspiration to lighten it and looks for no appreciation ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... to his recollection of Foster's features, stature, etc., Sandy did his best, and only succeeded in portraying the deceased almost to the life. Except, he said, Foster had long, thick, curving eyelashes, and "this man hasn't"—but it was remembered that brows and lashes both were singed off in the fire. So that point ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... been set shining from within, perhaps with a mild lustre; sensibly to the observant, more credibly of the golden sort. Her dislike of superlatives, when the marked effect had to be produced, and it was not the literary performance she could relish as well as any of us, renders hard the task of portraying a woman whose character calls them forth. To him knowing her, they would not fit; her individuality passes between epithets. The reading of a sentence of panegyric (commonly a thing of extension) deadened ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... just to lay further stress on the importance of Pantomime, and then to return to our History. Take any part in any play, strip from it in its enactment the whole of its gesture language, could we realise that the actor appearing in it was portraying nature for us? Replace the Pantomime so essential to the part, and the character becomes—or rather should become if properly played—a creature of flesh and blood the same as ourselves. Pantomime, on the other hand, does not require ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent

... added. His self-sufficiency is unparalleled; and in the preface to an edition of his works published under the comprehensive and presumptuous title of "La Comedie Humaine," he puts himself on a level with the first of poets and philosophers, proposing himself the modest aim of portraying human nature in every variety of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... Spain by one of the foremost Spanish artists of our day. The royal lady was depicted wearing an enormous pearl; however, the artist informed the author that the real pearl was much smaller than the painted one, but that, in portraying it, a better decorative effect was obtained by increasing its size. Whether Holbein (1497-1543), with his Dutch exactness of portrayal, was led into any similar exaggerations we can never tell, as little as we can know anything definite ...
— Shakespeare and Precious Stones • George Frederick Kunz

... horse forward. With shouts and yells, which, of course, had no part in the picture, yet which served to aid them in their acting, the players who were portraying the Confederates came after her, spurring their horses and firing wildly. On and on rushed the steed bearing the ...
— The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays - Or, The Sham Battles at Oak Farm • Laura Lee Hope

... complete and truthful a picture of the world. There is hardly any Greek writer, perhaps none at all, of whom this can be said. Many moderns can faithfully describe what is disagreeable, but their effects are often brutal and always depressing. The gift of portraying suffering and evil with unflinching truth, yet of conveying other feelings than those of mere horror, is reserved for few. Its rarity perhaps explains the rarity of great tragedy, of which it seems to be a condition that it shall truthfully show what is ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... of Physical Vigor," which forms its west entrance. The tall Corinthian columns on either side support Ralph Stackpole's figure of "Youth" and crowning the smaller columns which line the dome are the repeated statues by Earl Cummings, portraying "Physical Vigor," from which the dome takes ...
— The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition • Louis Christian Mullgardt

... the play much more fully than when seeing professional actors. The amateur dramatic club tends to become a community organization in which the people have a real pride and for which they develop a loyalty which affords it a peculiar opportunity and responsibility for portraying various problems and phases of life, giving not only enjoyment but a finer and deeper ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson

... bowstrings, and the straps of the bucklers in such a way that, on the morrow, the enemy, finding themselves disarmed, fled after a mere pretence at resistance, and suffered severe losses. A statue was long shown in the temple at Memphis portraying this Sethon: he was represented holding a mouse in his hand, and the inscription bade men reverence the god who had ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... moralist and a satirist, very sensitive to the ills and follies of humanity, and impressionable in the highest degree. For such a man it was impossible to refrain from giving his opinions, his praise or his blame, in all that he wrote upon everything that interested him; and in portraying the society which surrounded him, he inevitably portrayed himself. He displayed as much as any writer the general complexion of his intellectual propensities and sympathies; and we can even trace in ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... of dramatic workmanship as this, fifty-one lines all told, there is the complexity and involution of life itself, and, as ever in Browning's monologues, over the shoulder of the poet more obviously portrayed peers as livingly the face of the poet portraying him. And this one—the admonishing poet—is set there with his "sudden rose," as if to indicate with that symbol of poetic magic what kind of spell was sought to be exercised by their maker to conjure up in his house of song the figures that people its niches. Could a poem be imagined more ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning

... in shape to a coffin; its locality, apart from its great size, renders it particularly conspicuous, as all must pass around it, in leaving the Main Cave, to visit the rivers and the thousand wonders beyond. At this point commence those incrustations, which, portraying every imaginable figure on the ceiling, afford full scope to the fanciful to picture what they will, whether of "birds, or beasts, or creeping things." About a hundred yards beyond the Coffin, the Cave makes ...
— Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 - By a Visiter • Alexander Clark Bullitt

... good and finds it, if only in hope and the effort to attain. Through the intimacy of his descriptions and often against our resistance, the artist may compel us to adopt the attitude of the life which he is portraying, constraining us to feel the inner necessity of its choices, the compulsion of its delights. It is difficult to abandon ourselves thus to sympathy with what is wrong in life itself, because we have in mind the consequences and relations which make it wrong; yet we all do ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... of the brothers van Eyck," he writes, "which united with a profound and genuine enthusiasm for religious subjects a pure and healthy feeling for nature, and a talent for portraying her minutest details with truth and fidelity, had continued till the end of the fifteenth century, and in some instances even later, to produce the most admirable works, combining the utmost technical perfection in touch and finish with most ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies

... lips. More famous than the Ladas is the Discobolos , or disc-thrower, of which copies exist at Rome, one being at the Vatican, the other at the Palazzo Massimi alle Colonne. These, though doubtless far behind the original, serve to show the marvellous power of portraying intense action which the sculptor possessed. The athlete is represented at the precise instant when he has brought the greatest possible bodily strength into play in order to give to the disc its highest force. The ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR

... persons who saw him on the stage in that character not infrequently drew the inference and kept the belief that he was personally a monster. His look was iron-visaged; the cast of his manners was relentless and savage. Quin said that his face contained not lines but cordage. In portraying the contrasted passions of joy for Antonio's losses and grief for Jessica's elopement he poured forth all his fire. When he whetted his knife, in the trial scene, he was silent, grisly, ominous, and fatal. No human ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... of future punishment reached its most repulsive and abnormal developments in the hands of the monks. A vast literature was produced by them, portraying, with vivid minuteness, the pangs of hell. Volcanoes were said to be the portals of the lower world, that heaved and sighed as human souls were plunged into the awful depths. God was held up as a fearful judge, and the saving mercy of Christ himself paled before the rescuing power ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart

... take little trouble about the history of nations who have left no distinct records of themselves, but spend our time only in the examination of the faithful documents which, in any period of the world, have been left, either in the form of art or literature, portraying the scenes, or recording the events, which in those days were actually passing ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... me from the distant field,—long and loving letters, full of hope, portraying all the poetry and beauty of camp-life, casting the grosser part aside; and to me at home, musing amid peaceful scenes, it seemed a great, triumphant march, which must crush, with its mere display of power, all wicked foes. But the sacrifice of blood was needed for the remission of sin, and these ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... coloratura roles. Mlle. Emma Calve, Mesdames Lilli Lehmann and Nordica, are notable examples of this. Each of these distinguished artists began her career by singing what are known as "Princess" roles, before successfully portraying Carmen or the Bruennhildes. As a rule, it is by singing many different roles that the lyric artist gains the skill and sureness that may ultimately render him famous in a few. Mlle. Grandjean, now principal first dramatic soprano at the Paris Opera, began her career there—after a few appearances ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam

... grayness and sobriety of the second. But there are few good pictures at Dort now, and some of the best works of Cuyp are to be found in our National Gallery, [London] executed at his native place and portraying the great brick tower of the church in the golden haze of evening, seen across rich pastures, where the cows are lying deep in the meadow grass. The works of Ary Scheffer are now the most interesting pictures in the Dortrecht Gallery. Of the subject, "Christus Consolator," ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... hastily: I have generally heard it abused, but I think in many parts it has very great merit. I am told that Retsch says he has no fancy for illustrating "Romeo and Juliet," which seems strange. One would have thought he would have delighted in portraying those lovely human beings, whom one always imagines endowed with an outward and visible form as youthful, beautiful, and full of grace, as their passion itself was. Surely the balcony, the garden, and grave-yard scenes, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... says Mrs. Bethune, "do spare us! I'm sure you must be portraying Miss Bolton wrongly. Emotion—to ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford

... is told of a distinguished critic that he persuaded himself that, with such power of portraying Medea's emotions, Pasta must possess Medea's features. Having been told that the features of the Colchian sorceress had been found in the ruins of Herculaneum cut on an antique gem, his fantastic enthusiasm so overcame his judgment that he ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris

... Born in New Jersey. Pupil of Schenck, Chialiva, and Edouard Detaille in Paris. Travelled in Algeria and the Sahara, studying the Arab and his horses. Very few artists can be compared with Miss Newcomb in representing horses. She has a genius for portraying this animal, and understands its anatomy ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement

... familiar, and from them he doubtless received many suggestions regarding his divine mission and the methods by which it was to be accomplished. Their author was clearly speaking to his contemporaries; but in portraying the way in which Jehovah's purpose in human history could alone be realized he presented an ideal which has a permanent significance in the thought of the human race, Paul rightly recognized that the same responsibility to make this ideal ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent

... an advance on the Oriental home life. In their treatment of servants and slaves, in the care of the aged and helpless, the Greeks were cold and without compassion. While the poets, historians, and philosophers have been portraying with such efficiency the character of the higher classes; while they have presented such a beautiful exterior of the old Greek life; the Greeks, in common with other primitive peoples, were not lacking in coarseness, injustice, and cruelty in their ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... victory. So fierce was the attack that the Prince was borne to the ground; and the Battle of Crecy might have been a dark instead of a bright page in England's history, but for the gallantry of a little band of Welshmen headed by Richard de Beaumont, the bearer of the banner portraying the great red dragon of Merlin, which had floated all day over ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... Books portraying the feasibility of "Comfortable living on seven hundred a year," or "How to keep house on a restricted income," are both helpful and pernicious. The prospective housewife buys them eagerly and devours them with avidity. ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... heart. Hence there is joy and love. In inspiration there is retroaction, and, in some sort, distrust. The hand extends toward the beloved object; if the hand tend toward itself, a love of self is indicated. Love is expressed by a retroactive, never by a forward movement. In portraying this sentiment the hand must not be carried to the heart. This is nonsense; it is an oratorical crime. The hand must tend toward the loved being to caress, to grasp, to reassure or to defend. The hand is carried to the heart only in case ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... Suffered and what they Sought. Describing Localities and portraying Personages and Events conspicuous in the Struggles for Religious Liberty. By JAMES G. MIALL. Thirty-six ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... round the tree, being threatened from all points, and, when he eventually hooks on, he has to go through a series of combats, and be probably ejected two or three times before he makes good his tenure." For faithful portraying, no one could improve on this description. These bats are exceeding strong on the wing. I was aware that they went long distances in search of food, but I was not aware of the power they had for sustained ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale



Words linked to "Portraying" :   depiction, portrayal, mirror, portray, representational process, depicting



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