'The Liar': Fictions of the Person
- Autores: Patricia Rubin
- Localización: Art history: journal of the Association of Art Historians, ISSN 0141-6790, Vol. 34, Nº. 2, 2011 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Creative Writing and Art History Edited by Catherine Grant and Patricia Rubin), págs. 332-351
- Idioma: inglés
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Resumen
The title of this essay is adopted from a short story by Henry James, and Henry Berger, Jr's Fictions of the Pose. The first The Liar was written in 1887. The second appeared as an article in 1994 and was expanded into book form in 2000. In James's fiction, portrayal is, not unexpectedly, an act of psychological revelation. In Berger's argument it is implicated in the self-fabrication of the subject. Berger's concept of portraiture is avowedly polemical and is situated by him in a developed art-historical discourse on the topic, both in reference and in dispute. James's literary portrayal acknowledges its sources in European literature (Turgenev, Flaubert, Balzac), but also rests on his own considerable knowledge of painted portraits, and intertwines studio experience with character study. The Liar is but one of many instances in James's writing where one can find a sophisticated account of the genre as well as an evocation of its effects. The close chronological coincidence of James's interest with Jacob Burckhardt's and Aby Warburg's reflections on the genre presents an intriguing moment in the history and the theory of portraiture. This essay considers these varied approaches to the subjects and purposes, the means and possibilities of portraiture. It suggests that the fictionalization of the visual deserves greater acknowledgement in the stories of the discipline of art history. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
