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The somnambulists : photographic portraits from before photography / photographs by Joanna Kane ; essay by Duncan Forbes, Roberta McGrath
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The somnambulists : photographic portraits from before photography / photographs by Joanna Kane ; essay by Duncan Forbes, Roberta McGrath

by Duncan Forbes, Roberta McGrath, Joanna Kane

This volume presents photographic portraits of historical life and death masks, recontextualising phrenological specimens as individualised human subjects. It examines how photography can document individuals who lived before the invention of the medium.

Accession 13703 ISBN 9781904587569 Publisher —
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Art Death and Burial Painting Philosophy Religion
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Hard Back
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Identity

name→ title
The somnambulists : photographic portraits from before photography / photographs by Joanna Kane ; essay by Duncan Forbes, Roberta McGrath
vernon_id
21885
accession_no→ accession_number
13703
vernon_slug
the-somnambulists-photographic-portraits-from-before-photography-photographs-by-joanna-kane-essay-by-duncan-forbes-roberta-mcgrath

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isbn_issn→ isbn (when valid)
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Descriptive

production_date
2008
object_type
Books/Document genres/Information forms/Visual and Verbal Communication
object_status
Accessioned
brief_description
The life or death mask is in many ways the sculptural analogue of the photographic portrait. Both suggest direct traces from life, involve positive and negative, and evoke a mysterious connection between a living, breathing subject and a captured image. The drive to capture true likenesses in the early 19th century was partly generated by the pseudo- science of phrenology. As a by-product of this, cast collections such as those of the Edinburgh Phrenological Society, have preserved haunting likenesses via life and death masks from individuals living 150 to over 200 years ago.Through her photographs Joanna Kane has taken these subjects out of the categories and hierarchies of their phrenological context. They no longer appear as disembodied scientific specimens, but as photographically embodied portraits of individual men and women - many of whom lived before the invention or popular use of photography. The title, The Somnambulists, is a reference to mesmerism and phreno-mesmerism, which were current at the time from which many of the casts originate from. The resulting portraits appear to exist in an ambiguous suspended state between life, death and sleep.

Subjects & people

authors→ author (initial fill only)
Duncan Forbes, Roberta McGrath, Joanna Kane
tags→ tags
Art, Arts, Portraits, Religion, Mythology, Life, Symbolism, Death -- Social aspects, Death in art, Religious articles, Relics, Death -- Symbolic aspects, Death mask
subject_people
Joanna Kane (b.1961)
subject_objects
—

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