2022/23

The course explores the development of portraiture from antiquity to the present day, focusing in particular on how portraiture expresses in different ways the sitter's identity. Even though today it is recognised as one of the main genres of art, portraiture has a complex history with a major turning point in the Renaissance. As it deals with the human face, portraiture raises important issues concerning realism and idealisation, identity and social performance, imitation and artistic interpretation. As such, throughout history portraiture has participated in important debates about the superiority of poetry over the visual arts, the construction of a ‘civilised’ persona, role-play, and the role of images to mediate between a lover and his/her beloved, or between life and death. The course explores portraiture across a variety of media (including painting, sculpture, medals, prints, photographs) and connects it with key poetic and literary discourses, investigating devices and visual strategies to make the sitter ‘present’.