A Phenomenology of Vision: the Self-Portraits of Jean-Étienne Liotard
- Resource Type
- article
- Authors
- Williams, Hannah
- Source
- RIHA Journal, Vol 0034 (2012)
- Subject
- Jean-Étienne Liotard
self-portraiture
phenomenology
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
eighteenth century
Selbstbildnis
Fine Arts
- Language
- German
English
Spanish; Castilian
French
Italian
- ISSN
- 2190-3328
This essay analyses the self-portraits of Jean-Étienne Liotard (1702-1789). Interpreting these objects through the lens of Maurice-Merleau-Ponty's writings on art and vision, I argue that Liotard's self-portraits can be understood as artistic experiments relating to the fundamental phenomenological problem of seeing and representing the lived-body. In making this argument this essay re-evaluates the art-historical tendency to read Liotard's self-portraits biographically as pictures of his unusual life or as tools of self-promotion.