So far I have shown that although portraits can be seen as aesthetic
objects, they also can take on pragmatic and symbolic functions—as
documents, memorials, visual biographies, or as proxies for the sitters.
A final function of portraiture that needs to be considered here is the
extent to which portraits can and have served as political tools, or as a
means of conveying an impression about an individual or individuals
that serves some kind of political or power motive.
The use of portraits for political purposes seems at first to suggest
propaganda, but there is perhaps a subtle difference between rulers who
attempted to coerce or brainwash their subjects by exploiting an image
of power, and those whose use of portraiture to convey their authority
had a particular social or political function within their specific histori-
cal milieu. For example, R. R. R. Smith has argued that in the case of
ancient portraiture it is misleading to use the term ‘propaganda’, which
generally has strong negative connotations inappropriate for portraiture
that was intended to provide reassuring images of authority.
Ancient
portraits often depicted their subjects larger than life to stimulate a
sense of respect and admiration. The ancient colossal head of the
Emperor Constantine I is a good early example of this sort of rep-
resentation. The physical dimensions of this work are massive, and
Constantine is shown with excessively large eyes to stress his wisdom
and religious piety as well as his political leadership.
European portraits of monarchs were similarly often envisaged to
offer reassuring models of worldly authority, but the authority was sig-
nalled in different ways. For example, Holbein’s portraits of Henry VIII
represented the monarch as a vast and imposing figure, so laden with
expensive clothes and jewels that he nearly bursts out of the canvas. A
century later Van Dyck’s portraits of Charles I are virtuosic examples of
how an artist could take a likeness of the monarch but could also show
him in an idealized and ennobled form. Charles I is represented on
horseback, or with his horse bowing submissively to him. A king
known for his diminutive size was depicted as if he were imposing and
inspiring immediate obedience. In the art of the seventeenth century
Louis XIV was one of many monarchs who employed portraitists as
part of a battery of artists to bolster the image of his absolutist power,
but the label of ‘propaganda’ may not be appropriate for this either.
Portraits were not necessarily propagandist in themselves, but they
could be made so through the ways they were copied and displayed in a
variety of venues. Copies could not only remind the viewer of a ruler’s
appearance but also could spread that likeness everywhere and give a
sense of omnipresence. This was the case with statues of Alexander the
Great that graced every provincial part of the ancient Greek empire.
Replicas of Allan Ramsay’s portraits of King George III and Queen
Charlotte were not only located in houses of the English aristocracy
but also appeared in public offices both in England and in colonial
America. Such a method was not only used by monarchs. Martin
Luther found printing a useful means of disseminating his own image
when his theological arguments became known throughout Europe.
The accessibility of Luther’s image to disaffected Catholics in many
parts of Europe helped fuel the sense of power behind his subversive
questioning of Catholic doctrine and played no small part in ensuring
his fame. The most obvious example of dissemination through copying
is the coin or banknote [ 37], which makes the monarch’s image visible
to anyone who has money to spend and naturally associates the ruler
with the power of currency.
Although portraits served an ideological function by enabling fig-
ures of political authority to communicate particular kinds of images of
themselves, there were very few who used portraiture systematically to
perpetuate a particular image of their leadership. The clearest exception
to this was Adolf Hitler, who commissioned many idealized academic
portraits of himself delivering the word of National Socialism in
Germany during the 1930 s. The portraits of Hitler were intended to
inspire patriotic and chauvinistic feelings in Germans, as well as to
incite hero worship of the dictator, and link him with his own mission
of Aryan supremacy. Portraits of Hitler were explicitly promoted by the
propaganda ministry headed by Joseph Goebbels.
Although one could certainly question the extent to which the
ubiquitous visual presence of a ruler, hero, or controversial individual
could constitute propaganda, the attention that rulers played to the cre-
ation and dissemination of their portraits suggested that they saw the
political value in the visibility of their likeness. It was common in the
ancient and medieval world for portraits to be altered if a ruler was dis-
graced or deposed, and the portrait in these cases was employed to help
rewrite history. Just as portraits could be renamed or altered when the
political situation changed, they could also be removed from their
visible public spaces and replaced with images of a new leader or hero.
This symbolic act of destruction remains prevalent in the twenty-first
century. For example, when Iraqi citizens and US soldiers joined
together to topple a public statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad in
April 2003 , they were expressing different feelings about the deposition
of a dictator but found the destruction of an iconic image the most
potent means of signalling their position. The desire to destroy or
tamper with likenesses testifies to the political power of portraiture.
objects, they also can take on pragmatic and symbolic functions—as
documents, memorials, visual biographies, or as proxies for the sitters.A final function of portraiture that needs to be considered here is the
extent to which portraits can and have served as political tools, or as a
means of conveying an impression about an individual or individuals
that serves some kind of political or power motive.
The use of portraits for political purposes seems at first to suggest
propaganda, but there is perhaps a subtle difference between rulers who
attempted to coerce or brainwash their subjects by exploiting an image
of power, and those whose use of portraiture to convey their authority
had a particular social or political function within their specific histori-
cal milieu. For example, R. R. R. Smith has argued that in the case of
ancient portraiture it is misleading to use the term ‘propaganda’, which
generally has strong negative connotations inappropriate for portraiture
that was intended to provide reassuring images of authority.
Ancient
portraits often depicted their subjects larger than life to stimulate a
sense of respect and admiration. The ancient colossal head of the
Emperor Constantine I is a good early example of this sort of rep-
resentation. The physical dimensions of this work are massive, and
Constantine is shown with excessively large eyes to stress his wisdom
and religious piety as well as his political leadership.
European portraits of monarchs were similarly often envisaged to
offer reassuring models of worldly authority, but the authority was sig-
nalled in different ways. For example, Holbein’s portraits of Henry VIII
represented the monarch as a vast and imposing figure, so laden with
expensive clothes and jewels that he nearly bursts out of the canvas. A
century later Van Dyck’s portraits of Charles I are virtuosic examples of
how an artist could take a likeness of the monarch but could also show
him in an idealized and ennobled form. Charles I is represented on
horseback, or with his horse bowing submissively to him. A king
known for his diminutive size was depicted as if he were imposing and
inspiring immediate obedience. In the art of the seventeenth century
Louis XIV was one of many monarchs who employed portraitists as
part of a battery of artists to bolster the image of his absolutist power,
but the label of ‘propaganda’ may not be appropriate for this either.
Portraits were not necessarily propagandist in themselves, but they
could be made so through the ways they were copied and displayed in a
variety of venues. Copies could not only remind the viewer of a ruler’s
appearance but also could spread that likeness everywhere and give a
sense of omnipresence. This was the case with statues of Alexander the
Great that graced every provincial part of the ancient Greek empire.
Replicas of Allan Ramsay’s portraits of King George III and Queen
Charlotte were not only located in houses of the English aristocracy
but also appeared in public offices both in England and in colonial
America. Such a method was not only used by monarchs. Martin
Luther found printing a useful means of disseminating his own image
when his theological arguments became known throughout Europe.
The accessibility of Luther’s image to disaffected Catholics in many
parts of Europe helped fuel the sense of power behind his subversive
questioning of Catholic doctrine and played no small part in ensuring
his fame. The most obvious example of dissemination through copying
is the coin or banknote [ 37], which makes the monarch’s image visible
to anyone who has money to spend and naturally associates the ruler
with the power of currency.
Although portraits served an ideological function by enabling fig-
ures of political authority to communicate particular kinds of images of
themselves, there were very few who used portraiture systematically to
perpetuate a particular image of their leadership. The clearest exception
to this was Adolf Hitler, who commissioned many idealized academic
portraits of himself delivering the word of National Socialism in
Germany during the 1930 s. The portraits of Hitler were intended to
inspire patriotic and chauvinistic feelings in Germans, as well as to
incite hero worship of the dictator, and link him with his own mission
of Aryan supremacy. Portraits of Hitler were explicitly promoted by the
propaganda ministry headed by Joseph Goebbels.
Although one could certainly question the extent to which the
ubiquitous visual presence of a ruler, hero, or controversial individual
could constitute propaganda, the attention that rulers played to the cre-
ation and dissemination of their portraits suggested that they saw the
political value in the visibility of their likeness. It was common in the
ancient and medieval world for portraits to be altered if a ruler was dis-
graced or deposed, and the portrait in these cases was employed to help
rewrite history. Just as portraits could be renamed or altered when the
political situation changed, they could also be removed from their
visible public spaces and replaced with images of a new leader or hero.
This symbolic act of destruction remains prevalent in the twenty-first
century. For example, when Iraqi citizens and US soldiers joined
together to topple a public statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad in
April 2003 , they were expressing different feelings about the deposition
of a dictator but found the destruction of an iconic image the most
potent means of signalling their position. The desire to destroy or
tamper with likenesses testifies to the political power of portraiture.
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