Le portrait photographique : des « trivialités du visage » à la « ressemblance intime »

The considerable success of the photographic portrait, whose first industrial developments came in the 1850s, led to debates articulated among other things by the faculty of unfalteringly catching their subject's likeness, a faculty people attributed photographs with. The new medium thus led a great many art critics to rethink, reconsider and redefine the notion of resemblance in the portrait. The writing on art and photography of this period, grounded in comparisons with painting and caricature, tried to define criteria and degrees for resemblance as well their articulation with the criteria of aesthetic judgements. It thus contributed to putting in question the links between art and representation. © 2017 Armand Colin. All rights reserved.