2.- Journal Article “Portraits in Painting and Photography.”
Freeland, Cynthia. Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, vol. 135, no. 1, 2007, pp. 95–109. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40208798
This article aims to address the portrait as a philosophical form of art, but at this point my interest lies in the practical definition of portraiture - either painting or photograph.
Ms. Freeland argues that while the aims of portraiture have often been defined as a) revelatory, which requires accuracy and faithfulness to the subject and b) the creative aim which implies artistic expression and freedom, these can be difficult to reconcile in both painting and photography. She found that portrait painting can show subjects in any of four ways, and sometimes more than one:
Likeness, where the portrait presents the physiognomy of a recognizable person
Proof of presence, where somehow the artist provides testimony that the person exists
Psychological characterisation, where the portrait presents information about the personality, emotion and attitudes of the sitter
Evocation of essence, by which the portrait captures a person’s essence or unique air
She then applies these four typologies to photography portraiture, and concludes that in terms of likeness and accuracy, and testimony of presence, photography is rated superior because of how they are created, and this depiction occurs without (or in spite of) artistic intention.
Also, relative to a photograph’s ability to evoke the essence of the subject, this is more complicated to analyse in portrait painting, and depends on the painter’s powers of observation of small details and to the his mental acuity and ability to reach inside the subject, which take time to achieve given the lengthy time for a sitter to pose for a painter.
It seems that given the speed of photography the opportunity for the photographer to capture the essence of a subject is limited, and the chance of success is lower. Ms. Freeland considers however that the production of a successful portrait in photography overcomes this by taking in other elements, such as lighting, clothing and props that make the sitter behave in such a way that his essence comes alive to be capture by the camera.
Then applying these theories to self-portraiture, the limitation of time to get to know the sitter is clearly irrelevant, self-portraiture using photography would seem to be an advantage.
These articles are very interesting, though I often skip the author’s philosophical approach and focus on practical ways of measuring the success of a portrait, whether painted or photographic, to clarify my thoughts on the value of photography in portraiture.