I like this idea -- painting portraits of people through the spines of their favorite books. A custom portrait would be a great present for a reader.
If you were rich, you could commission a portrait every year of the books you'd read that year. Wouldn't that make a fun gallery? And so much less pressure than trying to think of THE handful of volumes that "changed your life, or helped make you who you are today."
I've seen that painting, but I didn't realize that's what it was -- I thought it was the artist's ideal bookshelf. I do like that idea. Although rather than using up all the wall space on a portrait of the books you'd read every year, you could just have the books themselves... and then you could reread them.
ReplyDeleteVery true! Although in this Kindle era, maybe the paintings would be a nice way of seeing all the books you love around you while not having to read and store them in physical form. I can see a hallway gallery of the paintings being a good conversation piece: "So... 2006 was your year of trashy romances, huh?"
ReplyDeleteI bet a similar concept involving music would be a big hit among the teenage/college demographic, or any other crowd that defines itself intensely through music choices.
You know what would be useful, along these same lines, and probably fun to look at -- a picture of all the clothes you've bought for each year.
ReplyDeleteThat would be really fun! And pretty doable in photographic form, if you keep track of what you bought and take pictures of it once a year. We could start doing that. My pictures would probably be pretty sad though -- maybe a couple of sweaters and a bunch of socks per year. With an occasional explosion of underpants to replace all the ones with holes.
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