Not I: troubled self-representations

Abstract

This study investigates visual representations of human selfhood by means of variable ratios of "I" and "not I", envisagement and defacement in spiritual, ideological as well as structural terms. The primary aim is to press art historical notions of self-portrait and portrait beyond the limits of conventional genres of visual art. Two pivotal examples outside the familiar field of portraiture are examined, early and late modern respectively, both of them cases from the picaresque tradition where historical human identity is challenged and questioned in visual terms. Exploring the methodological potential of "iconoclash" as an ideology-critical notion was a secondary aim.