Introductory description

This module will introduce students to the development of portraiture from the early modern period onwards. Seminars will allow an opportunity to examine the techniques which artists have adopted, and the problems they have encountered, in representing their human subjects.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Theorising Portraiture
Portraiture and Gender
Self-portraiture and artistic identity
Likeness vs the Ideal
Portraiture and Power
Subjects vs Models
Portraiture and photography
Significant Forms?: Portraiture and Modernist Aesthetics
The meanings of portraiture: the origins and displays of the National Portrait Gallery

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Distinguish between different types of portraits.
• Analyse portraits in their historical context.
• Show an understanding of how portraits reflect and inscribe different kinds of social identities.
• Show an understanding of the ways in which portraiture has developed alongside broader artistic and technological trends.
• Present an argumant, initiate and sustain group discussion through intelligent questioning and debate at an appropriate level
• Ability to undertake research and to write up the results in the form of a well-structured argument at an appropriate level
• Familiarity with essential ICT skills
• Ability to collaborate effectively with others
• Show understanding of diverse viewpoints
• Ability to find, select, organize and synthesize evidence
• Ability to formulate a sustained argument
• Think conceptually and independently at an appropriate level
• Demonstrate sophisticated visual analysis
• Demonstrate bibliographical skills at an appropriate level
• Demonstrate critical analysis of cultural artefacts in their context

Indicative reading list

Bernard Berenson, ‘The Effigy and the Portrait’ in Aesthetics and History in the Visual Arts, 1948, pp.190-200.
James Breckenridge: Likeness: A Conceptual History of Ancient Portraiture ((Evanston, IL, 1969)
Lorne Campbell, Renaissance Portraits: European Portrait Painting in the 14th, 15th and 16th Centuries (New Haven and London, 1990).
Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning from More to Shakespeare (Chicago and London, 1984)
Anthony Halliday, Facing the Public: Portraiture in the Aftermath of the French Revolution (Manchester, 2000)
Lara Perry, History’s Beauties: Women and the National Portrait Gallery, 1856-1900 (Aldershot, 2006)
Marcia Pointon: Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eigtheenth-Century England (New Haven and London, 1993)
Griselda Pollock, ‘Woman as Sign in in Pre-Raphaelite Literature: The Representation of Elizabeth Siddall’ in Pollock (ed.), Vision and Difference (London, 1990), pp.91-114.
Alois Regl, The Group Portraiture of Holland (various editions)
William Rubin (ed.), Picasso and Portraiture: Representation and Transformation (London, 1996)
Patricia Simon, ‘Women in Frames: The Eye, the Gaze and the Profile in Renaissance Portraiture’ in History Workshop Journal (Spring 1988), 4-30.
David Smith, Masks of Wedlock: Seventeenth-Century Dutch Marriage Portraiture (Epping, 1982)
Shearer West, Portraiture (Oxford, 2004)
Joanna Woodall (ed.) Portraiture: Facing the Subject (Manchester, 1997)

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Subject specific skills

• Distinguish between different types of portraits
• Analyse portraits in their historical context
• Show an understanding of how portraits reflect and inscribe different kinds of social identities
• Show an understanding of the ways in which portraiture has developed alongside broader artistic and technological trends
• Demonstrate sophisticated visual analysis
• Demonstrate critical analysis of cultural artefacts in their context

Transferable skills

• Present an argument, initiate and sustain group discussion through intelligent questioning and debate at an appropriate level
• Ability to undertake research and to write up the results in the form of a well-structured argument at an appropriate level
• Familiarity with essential ICT skills
• Ability to collaborate effectively with others
• Show understanding of diverse viewpoints
• Ability to find, select, organize and synthesize evidence
• Ability to formulate a sustained argument
• Think conceptually and independently at an appropriate level
• Demonstrate bibliographical skills at an appropriate level