To paint a portrait, you first have to fall in love. This is what Igor Babailov believes, and he should know. The Russian-born artist, who’s made his home in the United States for 35 years, has painted hundreds of portraits, from George W. Bush to Nelson Mandela, from Patriarch Kirill of Russia to Akira Kurosawa to Hillary Clinton, and not one but three popes — John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis.
“I have to fall in love with the person I paint, otherwise it will never happen. It has to come from my heart,” Babailov said.
The artist, who is also a teacher and speaker, remembers unveiling Francis’ portrait to the pope, who listened attentively as he explained, through an interpreter, the composition of the work and all the details he had included.
“His eyes lit up when I pointed at the children,” Babailov said. “He loved children.” Francis pointed toward his own heart and murmured that he was touched.
The portrait is titled “The Holy Cross” and shows Francis standing under the Holy Family. Behind him, a faint rainbow traces a bridge between Hagia Sophia and the dome of St. Peter’s, which is lit from inside, with a line of pilgrims making their way toward the door. The composition of the entire piece is essentially cross-shaped, with Pope Francis at the center, covering his silver pectoral cross with his hands in a gentle, protective gesture, and looking heavenward with his characteristic placid smile.
Below him we see Francis in two vignettes emblematic of his papacy: in one, sheltering and embracing poor children, and in the other, about to press his lips to the newly washed foot of a dark-skinned person in a wheelchair.
“A portrait is not just a visual likeness; it’s the story of who the person is. That’s why I incorporated him washing feet. That was him in his heart. That was his nature,” Babailov said.
In fact, visiting prisoners — although he was too ill to wash feet, as in former years — was one of the last things Francis did. On Holy Thursday, he visited inmates at Regina Coeli prison in Rome; on Easter Monday, he died.
Photography vs. portraiture
It’s a tricky business, faithfully portraying a real human being with a complex life and legacy. But Babailov insists that a thoughtful painting is better than a photograph for preserving someone’s likeness for future generations.
“For some reason, we trust the camera. But a camera is a cold-blooded machine,” he said. It flattens everything, and it can’t make any decisions about what is and is not important in an image. An artist can make these distinctions and can organize a work to draw the eye first to what is most meaningful.
“Everything is important to a camera,” Babailov said. “But an artist can select.”
Babailov said that, although the three popes whose portraits he painted were very different, they all had in common a palpable sense of holiness. Not so with everyone who sits for one of his portraits! Babailov has accepted commissions for all sorts of people.
Although he spends hours gazing into the face of his subject — trying, in a sense, to read their souls — he never feels the need to edit out anything he sees or to flatter his subject.
“That never, ever, ever comes to my mind. Just the opposite: I see beauty in everyone,” he said. “That may sound strange. People have contradictions. But as a portrait painter, I have to fall in love with the person I paint.”
Trained to observe the human form
He is in love, in fact, with the human body itself, from the inside out. Babailov, whose father was a painter and whose mother was a teacher, painted his first portrait at the age of 4, then began studying art in earnest at age 9. At 13, he was accepted into the prestigious Moscow Secondary School of Fine Arts and undertook a 23-hour-long journey by train from his remote town near Siberia to the city, where he began a rigorous course of study. He completed his education at Surikov Moscow State Academic Art Institute.
At this time, the Iron Curtain still held back the tidal wave of modernity that had swept across the Western world, and Soviet art schools still taught only from a curriculum based in realism. Art students drew exclusively from life, never from photos.
“They were so strict about following the old rules in fine art education, copying a photograph would result in being kicked out of school for cheating,” he said.
Art students also learned what was under the skin.
“I was in school for 16 years, and we studied human anatomy twice a week. If you do the math, that’s a lot of anatomy lessons,” he said.
Babailov has now lived in the United States for 35 years, and while he’s grateful for the freedom his adopted country affords — remarking that he still marvels when Americans find things to “whine and complain” about — he’s also glad he was trained according to the old school of thought, at least where art is concerned. Because of his deep knowledge of the human form, he sees in every body the beauty of God’s creation.
Pushing against complacency
Babailov, who has painted three papal portraits, is as interested as anyone else in the papal conclave — perhaps more so, because chances are good he’ll be sitting in a room with the next pontiff, looking deeply into his eyes and trying to discern what it is that makes him look like himself. Babailov has his opinions about who would make a good next vicar of Christ. But when it comes to portraits, he said, “Everyone is beautiful to me.”
He knows that sounds unlikely, but he means it.
“People sometimes ask me what is the most interesting portrait I’ve ever done, and my answer is, ‘My next portrait is my most interesting portrait,'” he explained. There is always more to learn, and he will never say he’s happy with one of his works.
“I can say I’m satisfied, or I have achieved what I want to achieve. But to say I’m happy, that means there’s nowhere to go from there — that I’m at the pinnacle,” he said.
As an artist, he is always searching. He knows that his works will outlast him by many years, and he takes that responsibility seriously.
“Your paintings are like your children. First you make them, then you nurture them, and then you let them go,” he said. You are giving them to the world, and you know they will remain there after you are gone — perhaps long after.
“It takes 450 years for an oil painting to dry completely,” he said. The canvas is always shifting, expanding and contracting with the temperature and the humidity in the air. Very old paintings often look dark and cracked, but that’s not actually the paint we’re seeing; it’s the inflexible varnish that covers the paint, stiffening and cracking while the paint underneath remains vibrant and fresh.
A love for people — and beauty
It’s an appropriate metaphor for how he tries to view human beings, flaws and all, and how he tries to show them to the world.
“We are not machines. We are human, things happen,” he said. People are affected by their childhoods, by their education. Politics colors how we understand each other.
“But in our nature, we are all pure. That’s how we are born,” he said. “I try to see only the positive. I love people.”
He believes that the tide is turning, and realism and beauty in art are enjoying a renaissance, and that art that’s made to shock or revolt the viewer is receding.
“People pretended that they liked it. But in their hearts, they were laughing at it or disgusted. But they couldn’t speak that out loud,” he said.
Humans will always return to beauty. They are hungry for it.
“People get tired of games,” he said. “The more I study it, the more I am convinced there’s nothing stronger than realism.”
