Opening

The question of human being has forms of registration within the history of art as well within both philosophy and theology. One of the most insistent forms this question takes within art history can be found in the portrait as much as in the self-portrait. Within both the self is presented. There is self presentation. With both portraiture and self-portraiture – to be more precise within these interrelated modes of self presentation – specific questions arise: who is the subject of the portrait? What does portraiture portray? What conception of self is presented in the self-portrait? The point of departure for any answer to these questions is that in the portrait the self – thus the self presentation – is defined by the face. In both painting and sculpture selves have faces. While this may seem obvious, it is still the case that the different modes of self presentation capture the complex relations between self and other as well as the divide, within the domain of the other, between what could be described as simple alterity, on the one hand, and the presence of the other as the enemy, on the other. Hence, understanding the presence of the self within art works involves following the way the complex presence of faciality is registered within art works. The faces in question will be as much of the self that is given within an overriding sense of Sameness as they will be of differing modes of alterity. Faciality is marked from the beginning therefore by an original sense of complexity. This means recognising that there will always have been more than one face.