10Story

22 January 2010

Vietnamese boy

 

Portrait of a boy threading a needle. Nguyen Thu (b.1930) Hanoi, 1960 Photograph. Original watercolour on paper, signed, dated. 26.5 x 39.5 cm © Trustees of the British Museum 1999, 0630, 0.37

Modernist constructions of the subject separate being from doing. The subject of a modernist portrait takes on the role of someone having their portrait painted. The ‘mind’ (whatever it is taken to be) is always elusive even when someone’s face is scrutinised for signs of it, unless they are good at composing themselves for this kind of portrait. But the personal quality that brings a face to life may be before it rather than behind it, and revealed not by some ardently-imagined plumbing of depths but simply by attending what is being done. In this picture, the boy’s whole body is engaged in a demanding task.   The mind is not ‘inside’ him but in his hands, his eyes; even the feet are concentrating.

 
 
 

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