The Floating Face
Garbo, Photography and Death Masks
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12919366 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Michelle Henning (0000-0003-3798-7227, University of West London, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 157-178 |
| Publication date | 2017-04-27 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Photographies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1754-0763 • E-ISSN: 1754-0771 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/17540763.2016.1266691 |
| OpenAlex | W2608926771 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 24 |
A number of writers have noted the influence of Ernst Benkard’s 1927 book of death masks, Das Ewige Antlitz, on Modernist artists and writers of the inter-war period. This article links it specifically to the emergence in the late 1920s of a very particular way of photographing people, termed here “the floating face”, which is epitomised in publicity portraits of Greta Garbo. It is suggested that this photographic convention is linked to changing attitudes associated with war, to the techniques of cinema, and to surrealism, but also to the influence of Benkard’s book. The resemblance between the death mask image and movie star portrait is significant for an understanding of the origins and affective impact of a certain photographic style. This essay also suggests that the death mask as a figure in film and photography theory emerges out of this particular style of photography, and this specific social and cultural context, but then becomes applied to “the photograph” in general. It is argued that the idea of photographs as like death masks is overdetermined by the social and cultural context of 1920s Europe
Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Camouflage · Context (archaeology · Face (sociological concept · Movie theater · Photography · Political science · Politics · Portrait · Representation (politics · Social science · Sociology · Style (visual arts · Visual arts · Computer Science · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Law · Photography and Visual Culture · Visual Culture and Art Theory
The Drowned Muse
Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
The Ontology of the Photographic Image
The Face of Garbo
Flesh Poems
Photograph/Death Mask
Garbo Laughs
The Aesthetics of Dismemberment
Greta Garbo and Silent Cinema
Mask, Mimicry, Metamorphosis
The Photographic Conditions of Surrealism
Experiences of Modern Warfare and the Crisis of Representation
Cultural Battlegrounds
The Close-Up
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,6 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2023 (3) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |