Representation in Self Portraiture This is a blog to keep track of my dissertation research and to help develop ideas in an organised manner.

 Representation + Photography
Edited by Manuel Alvarado, Edward Buscombe and Richard Collins
first published 2001 by Palgrave, New York
0-333-61712-6 paperback

Photography, Ideology and Education (1975)
Terry Dennett and Jo Spence

-ongoing work of two practicing photographers, social + documentary photography
-promote interest in photography as a critical educational tool

The medium's idealogical role

p17 - photographs still seen as evidence in which conclusions can be drawn, however text can radically subvert the meaning of the photograph, e.g. fox (fox hunting) or something else, tourist shoot.

'false consciousness arises from the compartmentalisation, mystification and bias of 'knowledge' and as such encourages the inculcation  of dominant values which places one area of experience in superiority to all others, thereby invalidating the experience of oppressed groups......' p17

controlling body of what is learnt
oppression a mixture of all three
Patriarchy - systematic discirmination on grounds of sex (sexism)
Capitalism -  " " " class (classism)
Imperialism - " " " race (racism)

 archeotype / stereotype

manipulation and bias has occured in the image in political campaigns to change an idealogy, a cartoon
p27 "How does one show the believer in the unbiased photograph that they are mistaken? We have approached the problem by listing various stages at which manipulation and bias in the production can occur:
1. in the conciousness of the photographer, and thence in their use of the camera
2 in the darkroom
3 in the editorial process of choosing from a range of photographs
4 by the juxtaposition of different pictures during layout
5 by the addition of text
by considering the context in which it appears (i.e. is it a magazine, a political leaflet, company report, governement handout etc?)"

-Final point raises questions about who the photograph is aimed at

all photos must codify reality in a number of ways - shooting + production stages

"Firstly, their own class, sex, age and race are factors that are usually ignored, and yet these are crucial when one is concerned to understand more clearly the problems of viewing, selecting and evaluating a potential subject for a photograph" p 27-28

Am I not already biased when I have CHOSEN to take the photograph of myself I have already made a choice... may have to accept that some bias is of course inevitable we are free willed beings and so that certain things  cannot be avoided. So within reason...

cont.. "Such factors will influence, however unconsously, the technical choices that have to be made for the actual taking of the picture and subsequent processes it undergoes un the developing and printing stages of production" p28

difficult to unravel what is happening

dominant views in history are dependent upon the realistic quality of an image
authentic text

Creating an alternate 'reality'
image we have of ourselves dependent on feedback from other people p33
get a sense of how we are ought to act..
reconstruct an identity for ourselves
children, negative view of ourselves, put ourselves on show

Can reverse this / reexamine with the use of photography

Work with children and showing them theirselves, to see their low sense of visual identity

3
Looking at Photographs (1977)
Victor Burgin

To sell, inform, record, delight p65

theory photography beyond where it has effaced its operations in the 'nothing to explain'

photographs differ from painting/film (which are seen by choice) photographs we see whether we want to or not p66
Semiotics, semiology - study of signs
photographs denote objects in the world
INTERESTIMG, need to refresh memory with the BERGER book

photography never free from the determinations of language itself. We rarely see a photograph in use which does not  have a caption or title" p66

p67 "These prior texts, those presupposed by the photograph, are autonomous; they serve a role in the actual text but do not appear in it......... like dream in Frueds description 'laconic', very few words

complex interaction of a plurality of subjectives

not just utterance now in photograph.... the performance of the utterance.

structure of representation - point of view and frame p69
some photographs taken especially deceptively so we have to work out what it is
other photographs we know instantaenously

mirror stage of child development - interesting
observed correleation between formation of identity and formation of images
Lacan

4 looks in thephotograph p71
look of camera as it does pre photographic event
viewer as looking at the photograph
intra dialectic looks between people (actors)
actor directly to the camera

time taken to look at a photograph, nt very long at all


8
Photographs and Narrativity
(1979-80)
Manuel Alvarado

work on the still image and single photograph laves out narrativity p148
Barthes identifies  narrative in numerous things, myths legends, plays etc

"a painting is made over a relatively long period of time and appearances are reconstituted by the painter. Whereas a photograph is a trace of appearances, seized from the normal flow of the eyes"
-John Berger p149

implication may be that a photograph is less constructed than a painting, writing or films p148
Cartier Bresson + Berger, photographs freeze movement and thereby stop the flow of events, reinforces this opinion
kinda refutes the narrative possibility of photograph
the analysis of expectation, action, flow, outcome, resolution, etc within them

Barthes rhetoric of the image, distinction between appearance and construction p150
denotation/connotation

how it was, how it could have been is politically more interesting question

central question entered, 'but what is not represented' p154


9
The authentic image
(1979-80)
-interview with john berger and jean mohr

Berger - photograph is more like a trace, like a footprint than a painting (sontag) p166
because paintings are made over a long period of time and appearances reconsttuted by the painter

photography is rather like memory

authentic, its authentic like a trace (assuming no tricks)
in a sense when it has been ripped away from the normal sense of things, it has been ripped away from usual happensing past and present which is the authentic ordinary perception of things

photogrphs are both authentic and not authentic

what you're trying to capture is the memory of people p168
'can the photograph ever capture internal, subjective states?'

talk about being involved in the process on photographing (documentary)
f=photos of the first day will be different than those one week later









Simon Johnson
www.thephilosophicalphotographer.co.uk

 0-14-021631-6

1

Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognises before it can speak.

The relationship between what we see and what we know is never settled
The way we see things is affected by what we know or believe
Always looking at the relation between things and ourselves
Soon after we can see we learn that we can also be seen
An image is a sight which has been recreated or reproduced. It is an appearance, or a set of appearances, which has been detached from the place and time in which it first made its appearance and preserved - for a few moments or a few centuries.

photographs are not as is often assumed a mechanical process
aware of a photographer choosing a sight/scene from an infinity of other scenes/sights
the photographers way of seeing is reflected in his choice of subject
the painter is reconstituted by the marks he makes on the canvas or paper

 Our perception or appreciation of an image depends also upon our own way of seeing

Gradually became evident that an image could outlast what it represented
How the subject had once been seen by people
A record of how X has seen Y
resulting of an increasing awareness of history - conciousness of indivuduality

"When an image is presented as a work of art, the way people look at it is affected by a whole series of learnt assumptions about art. Assumptions concerning: Beauty, truth, genius, civilisation, form, status, taste, etc." p11

these assumptions obscure the past
"the past is not for living in; it is a well of conclusions from which we draw in order to act''

Camera destroys the uniqueness of the image, (mainly paintings which once were one of a kinds)
 its meaning multiplys or fragments into many meanings p19
lends meaning to their meaning, painting shown on television screen it enters their environment

I need to be careful with what I am going to be talking about in this chapter, because uyes I am basically stating wyat I actually mean by representation and identity in this dissertation but perhaps I can go into some of the problems involved with this identity

If we reproduce the human face... seen in a different context
One might argue that all reproductions more or less distort, and that therefore the original painting is still in a sense unique. 

mystification

authenticity

Things such as self-portraits are unique in I think they often don't have to worry about other problems other photogrpahs have as obviously they are of a person and they are taken ina certain time and that is captured in the camera, i.e we can tell we have ages and the passing of time is recorded in our face and bodies... They have to worry more about manipulation of frames, of photoshop, lighting, technique, the things around the frame which may serve to distort and confuse the seer

This needs to introduce the thing that my dissertation will be looking at, it needs to suggest that we need to look at how ones actions can affect the outcome through the consious and unconcious actions and then it can be dwelled upon to look more upon how the seeer interprets the image to be the deciding factor and finally context is what brings it all together, perhaps.

SO, I need to define what I mean by self-portrait as in what exactly constitutes a self-portrait for me ''one that conveys a sense of identity and in this I would argue one that generally would portray the face but again is open for debate as everything is, the act f photographing is proof of the photographers presence and imposing upon a situation is it not?
SECONDLY, I need to define then what is meant by representation or an ACCURATE representation.. what exactly am I looking for in this dissertation a sense of truth? is that even possible? well it shall be ascertatined and I would suggest now that the truth is not some tsngible thing that can be pulled apart by this dissertation as the past is gone forever and we shall be forced to reconstruct it from the available data we have left.

Consequently a reproduction, as well as making its own references to the image of its original, becomes itself the reference point for other images. The meaning of an image is changed according to what one sees immediately beside it or what comes immediately after it. Such authority as it retains, is distributed over the whole context in which it appears.  - 29

At present I haven't thought so much about the context but then this may be more relevent in the latter half of my dissertation.

Walter Benjamin - the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction
---------------------------------

 3 - differnces to perception of women to men

5 - concept of possessing when it comes to painting

Seems to me with the introduction of photography (as opposed to painting) the idea of possession has expanded greatly to encompass a lot more, images are easily downloadable and printable and so easily posessed by anyone and everyone

 7 - publicity of images




Simon Johnson
www.thephilosophicalphotographer.co.uk

 The Burden of Representation
Essays on photographies and Histories
-John Tagg
published 1993 University of Minnesota Press
published in GB by Macmillan press ltd
ISBN 0-8166-2405-4
printed in china

INTRODUCTION - I

realist position, Roland Barthes - 'The camera is an instrument of evidence'
there is an existential connection between 'the necessarily real thing which has been placed before the lens' and the photographic image: 'every photograph is somehow co-natural with its referrent'.
What the photograph asserts is the overwhelming truth that 'the thing has been there': there was a reality which once existed, though it is a reality one can no longer touch.'  roland barthes, camera lucida

The important thing is that the photograph possesses an evidential force, and that its testimony bears not on the object but on time. From a phenomenological viewpoint, in the Photograph, the power of authentication exceeds the power of representation. - ibid 88-89

New idea of authentication vs representation, and perhaps in my dissertation this authentication is not possible only via the context given by a coherentism style approach

p2 I need to point out, of course, that the existence of a photograph is no guarantee of a corresponding pre-photographic existent.

I need to clarify in my work, yes representation but perhaps identity is a good topic to focus on, the self-portraiture in which I am focusing the body of this work is that which suggests a sense of identity, so the face would tend to give that uniqueness and capture that because we tend to all be different in this way.

p3 The indexical nature of the photograph - the causative link between the pre-photographic referrent and the sign - is therefore highly complex, irreversible, and can guarantee nothing at the level  of meaning.

Things happen inside the camera, distorted so we can see it... these have meanings
requires a history

This is not the inflection of a prior (though irretrievable) reality, as Barthes would have us believe, but the production of a new and specific reality, the photograph, which becomes meaningful in certain transactions and has real effects, but cannot refer or be referred to a pre-photographic reality as to a truth.  p3

to make present what is absent
 Barthes mother...

what is real is what makes it meaningful
p4 ' for this however, we must look not to some 'magic' of the medium, but to the conscious and unconsious processes, the practices and instituitions through which the  photograph can incite a phaantasy, take on meaning, and exercise an effect.'
 'That a photograph can come to stand as evidence, for example, rests not on a natural or existential fact, but on a social, semiotic process, though this is not to suggest  that evidential value is embedded in the print, in an abstract apparatus, or in particular signifying strategy'

evidential force for barthes - complex historical outcome

Ask yourself the question, under what conditions a picture of the Loch ness monster (of which there are many) be acceptable?
Important here, shows us to a degree of what may be truthful and may open up an avenue of discourse... everythin can be doubted and falsified and may open up an infinite regress situation.

INTRODUCTION - II

Foucault reference, power
Power and meaning have a reciprocal relation described in the coupled concepts of the regime of power and the regime of sense. p6
photography's status as evidence had to be produced, negotiated to be established

Foucaults metaphor of Panopticism
+ his concept of a new technology of power/knowledge to the photographic domain

INTRODUCTION - III

Documentary
appropriated photographic technology to a central and privledged place within its rhetoric of immediacy and truth. - william stott

claiming to only 'put the facts' directly of vicariously, through the report of 'first hand experience'

 INTRODUCTION - IV

INTRODUCTION - V

INTRODUCTION VI

power is essentially the issue here

SKIP TO FIRST ESSAY, IRRELEVANT

Chapter 1
A democracy of the image: Photographic Portraiture and Commodity Production

Surrounded by photographs, special photographs, images of ourselves, family etc
'portraits whose meaning and value lie in countless social exchanges and rituals which would now seem incomplete without photography' Moments are sealed with the exchanging of a photograph  a portrait.
What uses do these pictures have, especially when taken out of context and put into a family album style
For most people photography has become primarily a means of obtaining pictures of faces they know? p35

Each image belongs to a distinct moment
'look at the plates reproduced in this chapter. Notice how repititious they are. Heads and shoulders, as if those parts of our bodies were our truth' p35
almost all 3/4 poses

II

The portrait is therefore a sign whose purpose is both the description of an individual and the inscription of social identity.
commodity, luxury
multiple reproduction, claims to offer a mechanically transcribed truth

III

The idealogical conception of the photograph as a direct and 'natural' cast of reality was present from the very begininng...

Leipzig city advertiser denounced the process as sacriligious, especially where it involved the representation of the human face:

To try and catch transient relfected images is not merely something that is impossible but, as a thorough German investigation has shown, the desire to do so is blasphemy. Man is created in the image of God and God's image cannot be captured by any human machine. Only the divine artist, divinely inspired, may be allowed, in a moment of solemnity, at the higher call of his genius, to dare to reproduce the divine-human features, but never by means of a mechanical aid. -quoted in w. benjamin small history of photography 1979 p241 in one-way street and other writings

Daguerreotype didn't first fulfill the demand for the public domain for portraits
However could capture unimaginable detail
by 1842 exposure times reduced to 20-40seconds, portrait studios open up everywhere

IV

William Henry fox talbot, allowed for reproductions to be made

V

Method of being represented may be of worth to talk about... in the past they came in the form of the daguerreotype which was OOAK and took a long time to produce, then reproductions came easier... and to the typical styles that are available today... Available in print, in a book, online on the web... these things change how one is represented surely?

VI

 Was no longer a privilege to be pictured but the burden of a new class of the surveilled.
new kind of power on the social body, generating new kinds of knowledge and newly refined means of control. p59


Chapter 2
Evidence, Truth and Order: Photographic Records and the Growth of the State

extracting and evaluating 'truth' in discource
micro-physics of power - michel foucault
camera is never neautral,its produces are highly coded, power it wields is never its own
'Photographs are never evidence of history, they are themselves historical' p65
The British worker must appear not only incoherent but entirely misleading in their purpose, eliding as they do the complex differences between the images they assemble - between their contrasting purposes and uses.

Chapter 3
A means of Surveillance:
The photograph as evidence in Law

I

photographs for art would be different than photographs for law

Representation can represent a truth of visual information, an idea or a feeling

Chapter 7
Contacts/Worksheets:
Notes on Photography, History and Representation

  Representation is perhaps then, two-fold... the intention and the interpretation

Understanding a Photograph - John Berger 1968
photographs are a record of things seen
p187 umberto eco, that if photography is to be likened to perception, this is not because the former is a 'natural' process but because the latter is also coded. 

learned schemas
meaning of a photograph is built up by an interaction of such schemas or code

p188 stressing the absolutely continuity of the photograph's ideological existence 

Power to bestow authority and privilege on photographic representations is not given to other apparatuses  within the same social formation - such as amateur photography or 'art photography' - and it is only partially held by photojournalism

what conditions would a picture of a UFO or Loch Ness Monster be acceptable as proof of their existence? 'natural' rhetoric of documentary images

Foucault argues that each society establishes what he calls its 'regime of truth': its "general politics" of truth: that is, the types of discourse it harbours and causes its function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true from false statements.... p189
very different from a world historical conciousness which John Berger has called for





Design of chapter 1---------------------
clarifying the question, need to describe what we actually mean by a representation, what makes a good representation? What qualifies as one? What degrees of measure can we use...
Go on to talk strictly about identity
With photography in general a photograph is proof of something being infront of the camera
Talk about the portrait in general, but when talking about the self-portrait is there not a lot more that is going on

How we are with passports and driving liscences the pictures are of our face, the disntinctive thing about us which show us to be who we are, of course things can be falsified but this is a starting point is it not.

Mention of truth, should I use this word? What connotations does this word bring with it

---
13vii
Tim Clark argues is that the question of a realist representation concerns not only  the confluence of crucial and necessary conditions and codes of the realist work, but also the outlawing, the refusal of signification

may have to research the exact meaning of this..

Clark, image of people p12




Simon Johnson
www.thephilosophicalphotographer.co.uk

Auto focus
The self-portrait in contemporary photography
Susan Bright
Thames + Hudson
978-0-500-54389-4

INTRODUCTION
'There is, in my opinion, only one conclusion that may be drawn from the idea that the self is not given to us" we must create ourselves as works of art.' Michel Foucault

locating the 'self'
always impossible image because the artist can never see what he is representing
self understood in a humanist sense
can be so performed and constructed that nothing real remains

'the self portrait has increasingly become very much a part of our vernacular and all the more widespread with the growth of photosharing websites such as MySpace and Facebook.'
arm out stretched or the typical mirror shot
question this new strain of vernacular photography

Andy Warhol posing in the photo booth, performance

representing famous people, surrounding yourself with celebrities so it may rub off on you

can be argued all photos are self-portraits as the photographer projects himself into the image.
Can be made of any creative form, PAINTING
in this book must explore the concept of identity

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Often acknowledged that autobiographies can differ from a faithful account of the facts
'The all-too-human desire to conceal events or inflate stories is understandable'
camera, an insightful tool for self-analysis
Not same leniency as the pen, photography seen as an agent of truth
so, self-portraits that reveal intimate life or use confessional modes are often held to particularly high standards in terms of our expectations of authenticity

may be highly constructed + edited - nan goldin, larry clark
but holds a special place in photography as evidence

internet a resonant confession box for emotion
virtual space has an intimacy about it
common for photographers to record some personal tragedy or difficult time
Hannah Villiger + Helmut Newton - documented their battle with cancer ( TRUTHFUL)
Perhaps in these photographs it is possible to reveal more of a state of mind because the photographs do represent an instant, a freezed moment. Often our emotions leak through our expressions and can be captured by the camera... However the problem evolves intot hat of misinterpretation and if a split second truly represents a human being, or moment

Sunil gupta - from here to eternity 1995, battle with HIV, dyptychs paired with a photograph of a London gay club

Anita Khemka - p48 - photographed to ease the pain, staged moments in public spaces. By p;lacing herself in the public domain she had less control over the resulting image. Tension between what is staged and what is spontaenious. 

Nan goldin - one month after being battered 1984
image reclaims that which she might have lost (eye sight, pride)
(DEFINITELY, FOR THE ACCURACY AND WHAT IT ACHIEVES)

Elina Brotherus, ranges from very personal to the ambiguous, illustrates the stylistic range and development of her work.  

Jeff Harris - toronto based, takes his self portraits on a dauly basis and uploads them to his website. 3'500+ portraits. in depth study of himself. ****

BODY

connection between self and body, occupied philosophy - descartes, kant and psychoanalysis
Seems a lot of these are not accurate representations, but manipulations and half truths, yes they are a body but reveal less than a face, well at least to me, not saying that they don't reveal anything at all but identity lies in the face and the personality.

Need to discuss why I would reject certain self-portraits, perhaps should clarify that I am focusing that on which depicts the face or a definite sense of identity as it does in the FACE book. WHY

MASQUERADE

FREUDIAN ALTER EGO HERE!!
Photography may offer an escape because the truth is something we do not want to confront!!
People can have two identities... Max Ernst, Loplop and Dadamax

Aneta Grzeszykowska rephotographs Cindy's photographs p102

Tracey Moffatt, portraying famous people, but I like how the chosen picture has been circled, this gives context with other pictures and also highlights a concsious choice, and I beleive allows for a better representation of reality here

STUDIO AND ALBUM

"I pose, I know I am posing, I want you to know I am posing, but ... this additional message must in no way alter the precious essence of my individuality" - Roland Barthes

studio where photos are made, album where photos are portrayed
19th cent
structured realm
distance devices to help feel at ease infront of the camera

Shokoufeh Alidousti - rare glimpses of erself doesn't reveal much, accurate representation more so than others that one respects their own privacy? Perhaps all other self-portraits are slightly forced.

PERFORMANCE

'i love acting, it is so much more real than life' oscar wilde

Perhaps the representation we create is never us because we will never be completely in possession of all the facts of reality... And so it is always a created self that can never be freed from bias because the mere fact of representing has done that for us whether it be in a printed form, digital, from the camera or not.

  









Simon Johnson
www.thephilosophicalphotographer.co.uk

 Purpose: Relating the photography back to the Van Gogh chapter.

FACE The new photographic portrait
William A. Ewing
with Nathalie Herschdorfer
0-500-54321-6
Thames and Hudson

20th century body was a dominant theme in photography
We are social animals, not solitary like the tiger or fox
Faces predate human beings
For millennia one's face was destiny, now can be manipulated, changed
Face is a battleground

Mirrors, self-awareness is important
mirror represented a truthful self-image even at risk of their vanity
portrait puts a head in a vise open to scrutiny from others
'the anxiety of the spectators'
william mortensen 'thoughts and emotions can't be photographed' p24

Emotions aren't captured in the photograph, but are invoked by the photograph to be reproduced by the seer.

Thomas Ruff 'most photo's we come across today aren't really authentic anymore'
            'they have the authenticity of a manipulated and prearranged reality
The photographers in this book are confronting that Warholian nihilismm workig their way through it, and helping in myriad creative ways to restore some of the old magic to the mirror. p25

GAZES facing up/facing down

expressions, up to difficult situations, face down adversaries, applied to photography
power not always in the hands of the photographer, sometimes it's a 'faceoff'

Rineke Dijkstra - Tia, Amsterdam June 23 1994
Mother 3 weeks and 6months after birth
dual portrayal seems more truthful 'tyranny of an instant'

one way mirror of the photograph gives us liscence to stare

Nicholas Nixon, aren't we a little alarmed by the proximity, three a crowd?

Andree Chaluleau - series L'enveners du miroir
portraits in a mirror, all differe t

LEE FRIEDLANDER oaxaca, mexico 1995 + anza-borrego state park, california 1997
'self-portraits of photographers are usually arrogant affairs, representations of confident, prescient artists, often seen seamlessly wedded to their mechanical 'eye'. Rare indeed is the self-portrait in which the photographer admits to a decline in his powers with age, or lays bare his fatigue with the world. Here, however Lee Friedlander faces up to his imminent demise, a weary soul resigned to a slow dissolution back into nature'

Unflattering, perhaps has more meaning and significance than mine, mine is in a period of manipulation, power and that relfects my age.

 Jorge Molder - series T.V 1996 extreme up close self-portraits
 seen as 'too real, too truthful'

I feel photography has become too lost, and involved in processes that the magic is slowly fading away

LOOKS masks/mergers

un self-portrait Gillian Wearing

Rafael Goldchain, self portraits, inserted himself into his family history

No portrait is ever really taken, rather made
Is Cindy Shermans portraits as opposed to self-portraits because they do not represent herself do they... what If I put on an elephant costume inside a box it is no longer a self portrait of myself is it? most of the light reaching the camera dfoesn't come from myself does it!?

FACADES losing face/saving face

meaning a deceptive outward appearance

'can any photograph of a face taken in a fraction os a second do justice to the complexity of that human being?'

  painting with a long exposure...

  TRANSPLANTS faking faces/making faces

don't usually say 'this is a photograph of my son, we say 'this is my son
 none of us complain when we end up looking better in a photograph, but grumble when we look worse

 
   Martin Parr's autoportraits p201

Yotta Kippe fabricated self-portraits 'precious moments'

"What is the function of a portrait? What degree of manipulation is correct, acceptable, between the sitter and the photographer, and should art concern itself with accuracy? Shouldn't photography worry about that even more?
R. Avedon 1993

claus goedicke all untitled 2000 wonders how we  free ourselves from socual stereotyping and psychological analysis

Lucas samaras extraordinary self-portraits
photo transformation


 







Simon Johnson
www.thephilosophicalphotographer.co.uk

Main source1 -
Main source2 - 

1 - (art) Portraiture in general


2 - Relevant Biographical information

Born 30th March 1853
vocation chosen to be an artist 1880
Father died 1885
Paris years 1886 - 1888 (first self portraits)
Guagin stays oct 1888 - dec 1888
Shot 27th July 1890
Death 29th July 1890


3 - Why this is relevant to my dissertation

p7 difficult to disentangle the legend from the life and put two and two together with his work, suggesting that the two things correlate. This doesn't make it true. Recent writers take the opposite approach, not to read the paintings as personal crises and afflictions, prefer not to see his later paintings as expressing his alienation and threatened sanity
"There is certainly an affinity between a person and his work, but it is not easy to define what that affinity is, and on that question many judge quite wrongly'. which makes sense, but how much this affects the truthfulness of an outcome is to be debated.

Of course can depict things in his art but more specifically in his self portraits may reveal how he saw himself.

I have chosen to begin this dissertation with the discussion of a famous painter because I think it helps illustrate better what needs to be sorted out in interpretation. Painting seems to be a slower process but shares many parallels with photography in output of representation. What happens when we paint? Is the painter really the one doing the painting?


4 - Van Gogh's conscious intent

chose to start painting himself, had no models and it himself was free. It was a way to practice his skills perhaps and refine them.
Because of the expensive paints it makes it more realistic he would paint and not on a wim, or is this a criticism?

Of his self-portraits it would be prudent to first suggest of course they are not of a literal representation of the man, and I would surmise they are what he painted whilst looking in a mirror of himself. What we are seeing is the mirrored version of Van Gogh, much how we mistakenly perceive ourselves in everyday when we look at a mirror.


4a - Paris years

living with theo, fewer letters, clearly very happy p91

It seems from Van Goghs earlier troubles, he found some recompense in Paris when he moved in with his brother Theo. Several things contributed to this: being in a city in which art is taken seriously, inspiration from the city itself, influence from the impressionists and having company to subside his loneliness. Proof of this is harder to corroborate because his main correspondent, Theo was the person he was living with and so physical evidence exists only in surviving letters to other people, the occasional letter to Theo when Vincent went on trips and of course his paintings themselves. In a letter to Horace Livens he wrote 'And my dear fellow, Paris is Paris... ... ...the French air clears up the brain and does good - a world of good.' which shows his attitude towards the place. Adding to this the 230 paintings he completed in 2 years is extraordinary. This is where one of his greatest achievements begins, his self-portraits. He painted 37 between 1886 and his death in 1890.

People have often speculated why he suddenly decided to practice the self-portrait genre and generally suggest that it is due to poverty. Usually to higher a model to paint would be expensive  and to paint oneself in the mirror is free. This seems to suggest to me that Vincent had no choice but to paint himself. However, it is fair to say that Vincent had lived a life of general poverty in his painting years so was used to not being able to afford models but yet not a single self-portrait was painted. It is suggested that this was to do with his new direction in life and decision to move south (Nathienal harris p106) and so would be a choice as opposed to having nothing else to resort to painting.

Nathaniel continues to suggest that his self-portraits 'chronicle the development of his technique and artistic preoccupations, but they are also psychological documents reflecting changes in his state of mind and health' (p106), while I agree that artistic must reflect our influences because what we know is a product of other things. However, perhaps painting reflecting his mind and health is contestable. Is Nathaniel suggesting that Van Gogh intentionally portrayed himself and how he was feeling or is it the case that his mental state is revealed through his artistic style unwittingly known to the artist?

4b - Guagin's stay

It's interesting to note that during Guagins stay, tensions did run high at times, and after being painted by Guagin Vincent clearly hadn't taken it in the best way leading to an altercation and sealing his departure from Arles. This led Van Gogh to mutilate himself by hacking off part of his lower ear and gave it to a prostitute as a gift. This left him hospitalised and took two weeks to recover from. What is of interest here is the two self-portraits which show him with his bandaged ear, clearly a conscious choice to portray a truthful event or occurrence.



4c - End of his life

His last self-portraits were painted during his stay at St Remy's and were the last he'd ever paint, some 10months before his suicide. In the first of these three, Nathaniel suggests it is an almost glamourous image of the painter (p215) and could have been painted to impress his doctor. The final portrait has his typical swirling mass as a background which could be his psychological condition of madness. Yet he appears determined, hard headed and aggressive (p215) Now it is interesting to note these show the artist from the opposite side than his mutilated ear, proving to be a conscious choice and something he did not want to portray anymore.
Perhaps these paintings show the artist what he hoped he was feeling, and are more about that than truthful representation. He was at odds with the world but remained determined with his art to console him. I wonder now if what we hope and imagine ourselves to be, are as real as what we really are. These hopes and dreams are important, they make up a part of who we are.



5 - Van Gogh's possible deception

contrast with a portrait of him (which would be more typical style portrait?) by Horace Livens the first known portrait of Van Gogh

There are many things in his childhood that may or may not have affected Van Gogh, but these are mere speculation, such as his brother stillborn exactly one year before he was born, usurper. p8
(more leading towards the unconscious here I think)

Towards the end of his stay in Paris, during the winter of 1887-8 his self-portraits make him look 'ravaged and thin-faced' (p141) which would be indicative of a troubled man (p140) This seems he was more interested in his work to portray himself truthfully, I consider it not to be beneficial to paint oneself in an unflattering light unless it would have some benefit to it? However, it is his final self-portrait from this winter period that is of interest to me. #28 shows Vincent brimming with a dogged determination, he is portrayed as the painter at work. 'he looks so different that it must surely be interpreted as a conscious change of self-image' is this how the painter really feels or is he by painting this trying to create a new Van Gogh? Can this self-portrait singled out from the rest be taken to be an accurate representation of the man? Perhaps it was accurate of the time it took him to paint it. Perhaps the accuracy lies only within his mind - it is an accurate representation of who he wanted to be, how he wanted to be seen. Perhaps this is very important in defining who we really are. However, it does suggest that he consciously chose to manipulate the painting in a certain way as opposed to it being merely coincidental and general interpretation is wrong.

Van Gogh claimed he paints so that people can feel his art not just view it, and so with his style of painting used his feeling to paint it. I would question how it would be possible to maintain this feeling and pour it into ones work because feelings tend to sometimes be temporary things, such as anger which change over time. However, it is suggested that he painted at such great speed that this no longer becomes an issue and more conveys a more truthful connection with his work because he wouldn't have had time to change certain details and manipulate things to how he wanted. Things were more spontaneous. 'he made no use of conventional preliminaries, such as preparatory sketches and oil studies, wielding his loaded brush to 'draw' directly on to the canvas even squeezing paint straight on to it from the tube' ' working at speed, Van Gogh could preserve the freshness of his sensations' (p147). He is painting his feelings, letting his emotions flow to the canvas. Now, the question becomes evident here, are these feelings then accurate of the person? Was Van Gogh aware of these and intentionally painted the way he did or was it a kind of lucid painting style. So it would appear to be suggesting that his mind and emotions (something he cannot control) have played an important role in how the paintings have turned out, and so he perhaps hasn't consciously manipulated them. This is good for his paintings can be seen as truthful representations, even if they are representing his mind. Whether or not these truthful representations are accurate is another matter entirely. The self-portrait reveals the unconscious has more of an affect on what the out come is than our conscious mind can suggest.




Simon Johnson
www.thephilosophicalphotographer.co.uk