Inventing Faces
Rhetorics of Portraiture between Renaissance and Modernism

The portrait is defined by the postulate of similarity. The interpretation of a likeness, however, does not stop with the identification of depicted persons. In this book, acclaimed authors approach the portrait genre from visual- and literary-studies perspectives, which led them on an impressive journey through time from the Middle Ages to the present and into the future. The portrait is explored as a complex result of the triad of model, artist, and recipient. From this perspective, the wordlessness of visual depictions proves erroneous, as portraits develop their own forms of expression and codes, which aim at dialog with the viewer. The face is thus not understood as a given feature of nature, but as a symbol or concept. Because looking at, interpreting, and reading faces is intrinsically connected with the search for human identity