... John Berger, in his book "Ways of Seeing" states, "in portraiture an artist can put across personality traits and characterisations. The penetrating characterisations seduce us into believing that we know the personality traits." John Berger The body has always been an important aspect of portraiture. In the past the gestures and disposition of the body vary in many different ways. The face is seen to be a marker of identity and as the entrance the soul; whereas bodies can often be more conventional than the individual's idea. In the last decades of the twentieth century in portraiture there has been a strong emphasis on the body. As with issues of social and private identity, the body has been subjected to new social pressures and expectations that have found their ay into the wider concerns of the artists. There is huge emphasis on face and surface in Western Capitalist society and ...

See this essay or coursework document in full right now