| Summary: | 博士 === 國立臺南藝術大學 === 藝術創作理論研究所博士班 === 107 === The objective of this study is to reinvestigate why human beings created, needed and observed portraits initially? What differentiates portraits from images? And what exactly is the representation of portraits? By cutting in from the viewpoint of the history of thoughts – the relevance between pictures and life, this study attempts to examine the thinking context progressing in the course of time from the concepts of “image”, “icon” and “portrait” apart from the viewpoints of the contemporary social history and photography history. From portrait to portrait photography, most researches have focused on the changes of social class, political awareness, medium, identity and recognition. However, is there another approach after reading into this extensive portrait history? In so doing, the following questions emerge – how did the representation of “sense of life” and “divinity” transform to “human”? And behind the recognition and longing of “subject” projected by “portrait”, what does it imply? This study also seeks to contemplate the possibilities that human beings adopted photography to observe their existence on the face of earth in addition to its obvious characters, a skill and a medium. In doing so, the fundamental “photographic” nature questions as well as extends the “subject” of “portrait” and unfolds the dimensionality in the “subjectivity” of “portrait photography”. What does “portrait photography” mean when it contains dual concepts, “portrait” and “photography”? Moreover, what kind of positive meaning does it reveal in our contemporary society.
It is because that in “portrait photography”, the target is absolute “human” instead of “object”. Hence, unlike the generally practiced reproduction in photography, the meaning of “photographic” is then reconstructed to reflect the visual and art representation: it is no longer just to visualize and materialize the divine or invisible transcender via the representation exercise or regarded as the absence of the essence. Instead, photography is employed to present the essential meaning, reproduction of viewing, and bring the fundamental focus back to human, the “face to face” relations. It is to build a responsible entity of ethics to enable that the understanding of observing is “awakening” and “witnessing” instead of realizing the power of “subject”. It is an entity of “subjectivity”, constantly brought back to the basis of co-existence relationship. From the dimension of ethics aesthetics, the above is the key attempt of the study to achieve.
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