Thorvaldsen's Shadow: Silhouette Portraits Revisited as Visual Culture 1800-1850

TY - CHAP

T1 - Thorvaldsen's Shadow

T2 - Silhouette Portraits Revisited as Visual Culture 1800-1850

AU - Dam Christensen, Hans

PY - 2010

Y1 - 2010

N2 -   This article takes its starting point in a silhouette portrait of the sculptor, Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844), by far the most famous artist of the so-called Golden Age in the history of Danish art. The main purpose is to outline the importance of silhouette portraits in the Danish Golden Age as well as their importance in a more general history of visual culture. First and foremost, the article points to the fact that silhouettes once were a very popular way of making portraits, which has been neglected by posterity. Next, it discusses silhouette portraits in a wider context that invites a consideration of similarities with for example, from a traditional point of view, neo-classical aesthetics and, from a more critical point of view, racism. Further, the article contest a modern "post-photographic" reception, which makes the silhouettes uninteresting or tedious, in order to promote a "pre-photographic" reception of silhouette portraits, where the indexical representation (in a Peircean sense) of a beloved, deceased or missed person is stressed; this "pre-photographic" reception is a mode of affective reception which we nowadays seem to overlook. In other words, the article argues that silhouette portraits could be a way of picturing memory and loss in the 19th century. In conclusion, this approach also invites a consideration on the challenge of silhouettes to the current photographical noem (in a Barthesian sense).

AB -   This article takes its starting point in a silhouette portrait of the sculptor, Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844), by far the most famous artist of the so-called Golden Age in the history of Danish art. The main purpose is to outline the importance of silhouette portraits in the Danish Golden Age as well as their importance in a more general history of visual culture. First and foremost, the article points to the fact that silhouettes once were a very popular way of making portraits, which has been neglected by posterity. Next, it discusses silhouette portraits in a wider context that invites a consideration of similarities with for example, from a traditional point of view, neo-classical aesthetics and, from a more critical point of view, racism. Further, the article contest a modern "post-photographic" reception, which makes the silhouettes uninteresting or tedious, in order to promote a "pre-photographic" reception of silhouette portraits, where the indexical representation (in a Peircean sense) of a beloved, deceased or missed person is stressed; this "pre-photographic" reception is a mode of affective reception which we nowadays seem to overlook. In other words, the article argues that silhouette portraits could be a way of picturing memory and loss in the 19th century. In conclusion, this approach also invites a consideration on the challenge of silhouettes to the current photographical noem (in a Barthesian sense).

KW - silhouet

KW - visuel kultur

KW - Guldalder

KW - Thorvaldsen

KW - silhouette; Thorvaldsen; Golden Age; visual culture

M3 - Book chapter

SN - 978-952-5533-13-2

T3 - Taidehistoriallisia Tutkimuksia

SP - 100

BT - Mind and Matter

A2 - Vakkari, Johanna

PB - Society of Art History in Finland

CY - Sastamala

ER -