Physiognomy as a transcultural key to correctly understanding early modern figural art

Physiognomy, reading fate or character from a person’s face, is now discredited but was once seen as a teachable skill. This thesis presents a cross cultural study of physiognomic knowledge in three distinct early modern cultures (Europe, China and Mughal India), as represented in figurative art. Artworks studied are mainly paintings, but also some sculpture and printed material, including physiognomic manuals. Using Clifford Geertz’s anthropological approach of identifying how art functions within a “cultural system”, the subsequent interactions are divided into two categories: representations of the Self (elite male patrons, or the artist himself), and representations of the Other (women, the poor, and the foreign). Representations of the Self are found in portraiture. Given the largely unspoken nature of physiognomy, it is necessary to examine how its use may be recognized within portraits. Anxieties surrounding appropriate representations of physiognomy are also important in...Show morePhysiognomy, reading fate or character from a person’s face, is now discredited but was once seen as a teachable skill. This thesis presents a cross cultural study of physiognomic knowledge in three distinct early modern cultures (Europe, China and Mughal India), as represented in figurative art. Artworks studied are mainly paintings, but also some sculpture and printed material, including physiognomic manuals. Using Clifford Geertz’s anthropological approach of identifying how art functions within a “cultural system”, the subsequent interactions are divided into two categories: representations of the Self (elite male patrons, or the artist himself), and representations of the Other (women, the poor, and the foreign). Representations of the Self are found in portraiture. Given the largely unspoken nature of physiognomy, it is necessary to examine how its use may be recognized within portraits. Anxieties surrounding appropriate representations of physiognomy are also important in understanding how art and physiognomy interacted. Conversely, representations of the Other are found in genre paintings and some portraits. The overall impact of physiognomy in these artworks is to emphasise innate differences between the patron Self and his Other. Ultimately, the resulting prevalence of physiognomy in figurative art suggests its transcultural importance within the early modern world.Show less

Leiden University Student Repository

Documents

In Collections

Physiognomy as a transcultural key to correctly understanding early modern figural art