Faraday: Image of the Man and the Collector

Abstract

The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries mark the transition from a visually starved to a visually overloaded culture. In centuries before our own, public figures were known primarily through the written word and secondarily through the visual portrait. Even in the nineteenth century, biographers devoted long passages to describing the presence, manner and dress of prominent persons.¹ In contrast biographers today tend to provide a series of photographs, usually snapshots, of contemporary individuals; captions only briefly contextualise this primary visual information.² Further, the reportage of events has become intrinsically visual. On television, edited film footage frequently takes precedence over the construction of the verbal story and the narration of dramatic events is often — and sometimes incongruously — accompanied by a still portrait of the chief protagonist taken at an unrelated moment; but this image, familiar to the audience through its repeated use, has come to stand for the individual, whatever the context.