Title: Portrayal and the search for identity /
Authors: Pointon, Marcia R.
Publisher: Reaktion,
Year: 2013
Subjects: Portraits; Identity (Psychology) in art.
Abstract: "In Portrayal and the Search for Identity, Marcia Pointon investigates how we view and understand portraiture as a genre and how portraits function as artworks within social and political networks. Likeness is never a straightforward matter, as we rarely have the subject of a portrait as a point of comparison. Featuring familiar canonical works and little-known portraits, Portrayal seeks to unsettle notions of portraiture as an art of convention, a reassuring reflection of social realities. Pointon invites readers to consider how identity is produced pictorially and where likeness is registered apart from in a face. In exploring these issues, she addresses wide-ranging problems such as the construction of masculinity in dress, representations of slaves, and self-portraiture in relation to mortality" --Amazon.com.
Contents: Portrait, fact and fiction -- Slavery and the possibilities of portraiture -- Adolescence, sexuality and colour in portraiture: Sir Thomas Lawrence -- Accessories in portraits: stockings, buttons and the constructs of masculinity in the eighteenth century -- The skull in the studio.