Portraiture

Portraits are filled with the external signs of a person’s socialized self, what Erving Goffman referred to as the
‘front’ of an individual.

they also place their subjects within conventions of behaviour, dress, and deportment

This earlier notion of identity is crucial to the history of portraiture. The idea that portraits should communicate something about the sitter’s psychological state or personality is a concept that evolved gradually and became common only after nineteenth-century Romanticism fuelled the idea of a personality cult, that is, a fascination with the particular qualities, idiosyncrasies, and actions of a celebrated individual

This earlier notion of identity is crucial to the history of portraiture. The idea that portraits should communicate something about the sitter’s psychological state or personality is a concept that evolved gradually and became common only after nineteenth-century Romanticism fuelled the idea of a personality cult, that is, a fascination with the particular qualities, idiosyncrasies, and

only a flatterer tells a man that he looks like his portrait