Hence while portraits have been around since creativity itself, which first appears arguably in cave art. When the pre-historic men and women depicted the world around them inside their living quarters, these can be said to be portraits of their lives, early representations of who these people were. As the notion of the self begins to develop, we seem to become increasingly interested in images of ourselves. Much later, during the Renaissance we see Italian and Dutch portraiture really picks up as genre, the stakes of portraiture were raised and primarily reserved for social elites, this were now images made to denote power and social stance.
Today while portraits of powerful and "important" members of society are still increasingly more likely to enter our most prestigious institutions and hang there for many years, more "common" members of society have also had their chance to be celebrated trough the artistic vision of painters and photographers, who deem these ch characters recognition.
Below I gathered a small collection of my three favourite photographers, Don McCullin, Steve McCurry and John Keny, these portraits work through signifiers to give us a short biography about the person that we looking at. These works allow us to recognize culture traits and emotions about the characters we are seeing. I can think of a few things which are so profoundly moving.
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Steve McCurry "Pul i Khumri, Afghanistan"
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| Portraits from Africa by John Kenny |
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| By Steve McCurry |
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| Don McCullin "Shell Shocked Soldier" |
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| Portraits from Africa by John Kenny |
