ARTHIST 80N: Looking into Portraits: Identities in Question

Course Description

This seminar explores multiple aspects of this basically simple visual category - images of particular persons. We look at portraits from diverse eras and cultures, as many as possible in their original media of painting, sculpture, drawings, prints, photographs or videos from the Cantor or other local collections, and others in reproduction. We also read and discuss brief essays and articles by art historians and cultural critics as guides for approaching and understanding portraits. Our primary focus will be on the multiple purposes of portraiture, from commemoration, projection of authority, and self-fashioning to asserting social status, cultural role, and personal identity. Along with the history of art and visual culture studies we will benefit from the approaches and insights of fields such as political and social history, religious studies, anthropology, and neuroscience.