Before I start to write about the portraits by Herman Pivk, I have to quote the definition from the lexicon: The representation of a certain real personality which shows the model as an individual and, in the art of painting, inevitably contains their face. The reason is quite simple – if we do not stick to the definition, we will face the problem of having to say which Pivk’s works are not portraits; are those, for example, the photographs from the series V belino bi zaplaval (I would like to swim into the whiteness), which Pivk realized together with Dane Zajc? Is the poet represented less completely on them than on the photographs which show his face? These are the rhetorical questions and the limitation which has to be mentioned no matter who or what they represent.