
The Visual Worlds of Life Writing
Portraits and Biographies in England, c. 1660 to 1750
Kerstin Maria Pahl(Author)
Liverpool University Press
Published on 4. February 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
312 pages
978-1-80207-456-7 (ISBN)
Description
An Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and the OAPEN library.
Early modern life writing extended far beyond the written word. People were painted, drawn, and sculpted; their biographies were illustrated, their pictures inscribed, and their signatures considered akin to self-portraits.
The Visual Worlds of Life Writing explores representations of individuals in the visual and literary culture of early Enlightenment England. At its centre are portraits and biographies, the most popular artistic and literary genres, which navigated concepts of character, identity, likeness, and difference, while increasingly staking a claim to aesthetic excellence. As potent cultural products on the art and print market, they were also key instruments of social formation at a time of nation-building, indispensable for the making of political culture and the public sphere.
Surveying the splendid diversity of portrayals - from painting and sculpture to frontispiece portraits and book illustrations, as well as micrographic and calligraphic portraits - The Visual Worlds of Life Writing reconstructs how individuality and collectivity were fashioned across different media. A thorough reassessment of visual culture's interplay with biographical practice, the book offers an analysis of the rhetorics of portraiture and life writing, a historical account of their sister arts tradition, and an inquiry into the social function of profling people.
Early modern life writing extended far beyond the written word. People were painted, drawn, and sculpted; their biographies were illustrated, their pictures inscribed, and their signatures considered akin to self-portraits.
The Visual Worlds of Life Writing explores representations of individuals in the visual and literary culture of early Enlightenment England. At its centre are portraits and biographies, the most popular artistic and literary genres, which navigated concepts of character, identity, likeness, and difference, while increasingly staking a claim to aesthetic excellence. As potent cultural products on the art and print market, they were also key instruments of social formation at a time of nation-building, indispensable for the making of political culture and the public sphere.
Surveying the splendid diversity of portrayals - from painting and sculpture to frontispiece portraits and book illustrations, as well as micrographic and calligraphic portraits - The Visual Worlds of Life Writing reconstructs how individuality and collectivity were fashioned across different media. A thorough reassessment of visual culture's interplay with biographical practice, the book offers an analysis of the rhetorics of portraiture and life writing, a historical account of their sister arts tradition, and an inquiry into the social function of profling people.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Liverpool
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
Illustrations, black and white; 57 Illustrations, color
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-80207-456-7 (9781802074567)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Kerstin Maria Pahl is Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and Associate Researcher/Chercheuse associee at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal. In 2023 and 2024, she was Visiting Professor at Humboldt University Berlin.