ARTS

摘要

Having your portrait painted was once a mark of the upper crust, an ostentatious exercise in self-aggrandizement. Now it has trickled down to the Facebook masses. In 2008, when artist Matt Held wanted to hone his skills painting human subjects, he started reworking the Facebook photos of friends and family. It was supposed to be mere practice, but when the social-networking crowd got wind of it, nearly 4,000 users bombarded him with requests to be his next muse. Held churns out each image in oil paint on a 24- by 30-inch canvas, then photographs the portrait for his Facebook galiery.