{"id":169,"date":"2020-05-25T15:57:21","date_gmt":"2020-05-25T14:57:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/debraflynnphotography.co.uk\/OCA\/identityandplace\/?p=169"},"modified":"2020-06-11T16:17:07","modified_gmt":"2020-06-11T15:17:07","slug":"historic-portrait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/debraflynnphotography.co.uk\/OCA\/identityandplace\/2020\/05\/25\/historic-portrait\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic Portrait"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Yousef Karsh, Albert Einstein,<\/em> 1948<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Yousef Karsh said that he had an endless fascination with his subjects’ ‘inward power’. Einstein is not looking directly at the camera, in fact he appears to be staring into space, that kind of stare when you’re thinking and not really looking at anything, perhaps evoking the cerebral power of his mind. He said he found Einstein “Spoke sadly, yet serenely, as one who had looked into the universe, far past mankind\u2019s small affairs”<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a sadness to this images but it also feels very intimate. There is a kindliness to his eyes. The image is cropped in close around him, he is wearing a casual jumper, not a suit or formal wear. His hair is unkempt and his hands are clasped as almost in prayer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His images often include the subject’s hands, but not always so prominently, it feels likely they are given equal importance to his mind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karsh has used high contrasts to add depth and mood to the image. He has used a Rembrandt lighting style which is above the subject, pointed down at 45 degrees – thus creating shadows on the sides of the face away from the light, but casting enough light to give a catchlight in the both eyes. This image also has less bright light behind the subject, in order to separate him from the background. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Einstein is quite often pictured sticking his tongue out or pulling silly faces, so this is one of only a few serious images of him. At his funeral in 1955,  J. Robert Oppenheimer<\/a> summarised his impression of Einstein as a person: “He was almost wholly without sophistication and wholly without worldliness … There was always with him a wonderful purity at once childlike and profoundly stubborn<\/em>“. Therefore, this is an unusually serious image of Einstein. It is worth noting that in 1948 the year this image was taken, Einstein received surgery to reinforce an abdominal aortic aneurysm, so he may have been feeling unwell at the time this was taken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Exercise Details and Research<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Exercise 1: Historic portrait<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Select one portrait to really study in depth. Write a maximum of 500 words about this portrait, but don\u2019t merely \u2018describe\u2019 what you see. The idea behind this exercise is to encourage you to be more reflective in your written work (see Introduction), which means trying to elaborate upon the feelings and emotions evoked whilst viewing an image, perhaps developing a more imaginative investment for the image. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The portrait can be any of your choice, but try to choose a historic practitioner of note. This will make your research much easier, as the practitioner\u2019s works will have been collected internationally by galleries and museums and written about extensively. Read what has already been written about your chosen practitioner\u2019s archive, paying particular attention to what historians and other academics have highlighted in their texts.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

use this model to write review:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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