Portraiture
I was advised to look at this book, Portraiture by Richard Brilliant. I wanted to look more in to portraiture, and specifically self portraiture. I want to understand why people take these image, and how they want to be perceived by taking it. I picked out a few quotes that I felt helped me understand these points.
Page 13 - Resemblance depends on the memory which rises up the image of past perceptions... Memory not only discovers the identity, but also contributes to its production, by producing the relation of resemblance among the perceptions in continuing association.
So if when we see a portrait of someone, do we see them how they are displayed in front of us. Or rather do we use our memory and remember them as we have seen them previously instead. When we see an image of someone, is what we see in the image all we think about?
Page 13 - Conflicting views on the nature of personal identity have cofounded the very concept of the portrait as a significant genre of representation because they affect the answer to a basic question presented by art works of this kind: 'Who is the who that is being represented?'
This made me wonder about self portraiture in two ways, who is being represented in the image? Is it the artist capturing the image of themselves, or is it just themselves in the image?
Page 145 - A confessional mode of self-presentation, tinged however with pride, confident that their personal reflections would reach beyond themselves to an audience. Both writer and painter exhibited a powerful sense of self, mitigated, as it were, by the impermanent state of the moment.
This quotes talks about how a self portrait, wether in image or text form, is added to by the artist. They will create an almost exaggerated idea of themselves, to portray something false to the audience. They come across maybe more confident, powerful and over all a better person than they really see themselves. There is an element of performance in every self portrait, and unless the audience knew the person personally, they wouldn't know that they were any different.
He also talks about how artist can become vulnerable once their work has become public. The world will get to see them, as they perceive themselves. Maybe not how everyone else will, leading to some scrutiny. Over all this book has made me think more into the idea of performance, and the idea we would always like to be seen as the best version of ourselves. Wether thats through self portraiture, or capturing others. There is always a sense of performance when we display ourselves in work.
