Search Results (22)

The article analyzes the constructions of the racial and social “other” in portraits of or for members of the Danish royal family held in The Royal Danish Collection at Rosenborg Castle and the Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Castle. More specifically, it examines portraits of young Blacks who served at the Danish court and who were painted by Northern European artists in the second half of the seventeenth century. In these paintings, the young people are posed with Danish royals, or with animals with whom they are contrasted or likened. The first section interrogates primary documents dating from the second half of the seventeenth century for information concerning the status and various aspects of the lives of young Blacks at the Danish court, as well as the language used to describe them. These written sources provide a frame of reference for the subsequent interpretation of four paintings in the second section. It is argued that all four paintings convey the performative nature of Black servitude and exemplify how enslaved individuals were expected to appear and behave. When displayed within royal residences, it is put forth that these works functioned to promote the “othering” of court Blacks, reinforce the boundaries separating the Danish royal family from their attendants, and visually assert the monarchy’s superiority, authority, and control. Full article

Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp, Nightwatch, and Syndics are rightfully considered masterpieces of seventeenth-century Dutch painting. Few museum visitors realize they are among over one hundred corporate group portraits commissioned in Amsterdam during that period by the civic guard, charitable institutions, and the craft guilds. Such paintings were the result of the collective desire of a group of people to be represented and immortalized during their execution of the jointly shared responsibilities on which the urban society was built. Corporate group portraits were commissioned and produced to occupy wall spaces in semi-public buildings, reinforcing the missions of both the institutions and the sitters. Their meaning changed fundamentally after they started to leave their original locations and found their way into the direct custody of the city. Some of the paintings were acknowledged as masterpieces and, with the focus firmly on their artistic value, their historical function became neglected. Full article

This paper introduces an analytical framework, complex mathematical personhood, to broaden understandings of how teacher identity is developed over time through an emancipatory lens. A single case study, or portrait, is shared of a Native Hawaiian middle school mathematics teacher who uses Indigenous and ethno-mathematical practices to inform his instruction. A bricolage of case study and portraiture methods was invoked as the methodological framework for this project. Key results demonstrate the importance of broadening mathematics teaching practices that center and reorient de/colonial practices in teacher pedagogical orientations. Full article

Since the 1970s, avian populations have decreased by about 29% in North America, sparking concerns about their continued survival. Birds are essential to ecosystems for seed dispersal and fertilization, insect and rodent control, and as a food source, yet people often under-value them. Research increasingly shows that human empathy is essential to the sustainability of species. Past work indicates that animal photo portraiture can activate empathy, but researchers have primarily focused on charismatic mammals and have poorly measured empathy for others, especially birds. We extend this research by creating the Empathy for Animals Scale (EAS) and conducting an online survey experiment with 793 people from the United States to examine whether bird photo portraiture activates empathy for birds in the same way it does for mammals. We find that bird photo portraiture, compared to traditional wildlife images, more effectively activates empathy for birds and enhances people’s perception of animals in general. Our findings have important implications for avian conservation and sustainability, potentially helping photographers, organizations, and scholars address public perceptions in promoting the sustainability of birds. Full article

Facial Expression Recognition (FER) has been widely explored in realistic settings; however, its application to artistic portraiture presents unique challenges due to the stylistic interpretations of artists and the complex interplay of emotions conveyed by both the artist and the subject. This study addresses these challenges through three key contributions. First, we introduce the PortraitEmotion3D (PE3D) dataset, designed explicitly for FER tasks in artistic portraits. This dataset provides a robust foundation for advancing emotion recognition in visual art. Second, we propose an innovative 3D emotion estimation method that leverages three-dimensional labeling to capture the nuanced emotional spectrum depicted in artistic works. This approach surpasses traditional two-dimensional methods by enabling a more comprehensive understanding of the subtle and layered emotions often in artistic representations. Third, we enhance the feature learning phase by integrating a self-attention module, significantly improving facial feature representation and emotion recognition accuracy in artistic portraits. This advancement addresses this domain’s stylistic variations and complexity, setting a new benchmark for FER in artistic works. Evaluation of the PE3D dataset demonstrates our method’s high accuracy and robustness compared to existing state-of-the-art FER techniques. The integration of our module yields an average accuracy improvement of over 1% in recent FER systems. Additionally, combining our method with ESR-9 achieves a comparable accuracy of 88.3% on the FER+ dataset, demonstrating its generalizability to other FER benchmarks. This research deepens our understanding of emotional expression in art and facilitates potential applications in diverse fields, including human–computer interaction, security, healthcare diagnostics, and the entertainment industry. Full article

In the mid-seventeenth century, Chinese Chan master Yinyuan Longqi 隱元隆琦 (Jp. Ingen Ryūki, 1592–1673), accompanied by several disciples, traveled to Japan and established Ōbaku Zen, a new sect of Zen Buddhism in Tokugawa Japan. Ōbaku art, particularly portrait paintings of Ōbaku abbots and their spiritual predecessors, became critical representations of the sect and greatly influenced later Japanese Buddhist art. While much of the existing scholarship focuses on the artistic and stylistic aspects of Ōbaku portraiture, this paper emphasizes its religious context and doctrinal dimensions. Building on Elizabeth Horton Sharf’s inquiry into the “meaning and function” of Ōbaku portrait painting, the paper investigates how Ōbaku doctrine is expressed through these images. Using the Triptych of Three Zen Masters: Linji, Bodhidharma, and Deshan as a case study, this paper explores the role of portraiture in visually conveying Ōbaku teachings and the religious aspirations of those Chinese immigrant monks. By examining the integration of image, inscription, and seal as a unified “pictorial trinity”, the paper argues that Ōbaku portraiture embodies the sect’s distinct doctrine, rooted in Ming-era Chan practices such as beating, shouting, and strict dharma transmission. Moreover, the prominence of Bodhidharma in Ōbaku portraits, as illustrated in the triptych, reflects these Chinese immigrant monks’ desire to emulate Bodhidharma in spreading the dharma and expanding their sect’s influence in a new land. Full article

There has been a rise in Islamic schools in Australia, a trend similarly seen in other Western countries, and yet limited opportunities for teacher preparation on what it means to impart an Islamically grounded education. This study utilises qualitative research methods, specifically portraiture to shed light on the experiences of in-service Islamic school educators, with varied backgrounds and religious affiliations in a cohort of the Graduate Certificate in Education (Islamic Education) program in Australia. This faith-based teacher education program aims to foster “faithful praxis”, and recenter the Divine in teaching and learning. The research focused on analysing transformative affective shifts as reflected in the program’s final portfolios. Portraits of four participants reflect a reconceptualisation of education as a holistic process that aims to nurture the whole student: mind, body, and soul. The portraits also highlight awakening experiences that signify the role of reflexivity and self-reflection of the educator so that educational renewal is of the whole collective in the school community. Implications of this study signify the role of spirituality in teaching and learning and the importance of moving beyond conventional and secular models of teacher education programs. Full article

Recent trends indicate a significant increase in the number of families opting for home education in the UK, yet research dedicated to this area remains limited. Moreover, there is a notable scarcity of studies focusing on the lived experiences of home-educating families of young children. Amidst this context, a new conceptual framework was developed combining the portraiture approach and the life course theory to study five families with young children in the UK. Semi-structured interviews, observations, and curriculum document analysis were used to gain insights into these families’ experiences. The study revealed diverse motivations driving parents to choose home education, including concerns about the traditional education system, a preference for personalized learning, and personal lifestyle choices and ideologies. The research data presented suggests that participants had diverse and dynamic daily routines shaped by their unique educational philosophies. In general, parents consistently sought beneficial opportunities to foster their children’s social development. Challenges participants faced included curriculum suitability, financial burdens, and managing dual roles within the home. However, participants viewed these challenges as worthwhile because their main aim of educating their children in a purposeful manner was being met. In line with the theme of parental autonomy in education, parents shared their belief in the freedom for families to educate their children outside traditional schools. They supported flexi-schooling, advocated for accessible resources, the inclusion of home-educated children in assessments, and government funding provision. Full article

Selfies provide unique opportunities to explore, document, and interact with the self through photography. However, the inherent intrapersonal affordance of self-portraiture becomes a unique manifestation of masspersonal theory when selfies are shared, a step that is often assumed but not unpacked in selfie research. Therefore, it is essential to understand when and for whom these intrapersonal and interpersonal moments evolve into masspersonal moments or communication episodes. This study uses a novel strategy to investigate selfie behavior–the likelihood of taking and sharing selfies–to assess individual differences between selfie-takers, or “selfiers”. Discerning selfiers–people more likely to take than share selfies–report greater control and self-esteem compared to non-discerning selfiers, who are equally as likely to take as share selfies. Furthermore, control mediates the effect of selfier type on self-esteem; discerning selfiers report that others are not in control of their life, resulting in greater security regarding others’ perceptions of them. The current findings reveal the unique effects of differential deployment of selfies. Full article

An essential mathematical structure that demonstrates the nonlinear short-wave movement across the ferromagnetic materials having zero conductivity in an exterior region is known as the fractional stochastic Kraenkel–Manna–Merle system. In this article, we extract abundant wave structure closed-form soliton solutions to the fractional stochastic Kraenkel–Manna–Merle system with some important analyses, such as bifurcation analysis, chaotic behaviors, sensitivity, and modulation instability. This fractional system renders a substantial impact on signal transmission, information systems, control theory, condensed matter physics, dynamics of chemical reactions, optical fiber communication, electromagnetism, image analysis, species coexistence, speech recognition, financial market behavior, etc. The Sardar sub-equation approach was implemented to generate several genuine innovative closed-form soliton solutions. Additionally, phase portraiture of bifurcation analysis, chaotic behaviors, sensitivity, and modulation instability were employed to monitor the qualitative characteristics of the dynamical system. A certain number of the accumulated outcomes were graphed, including singular shape, kink-shaped, soliton-shaped, and dark kink-shaped soliton in terms of 3D and contour plots to better understand the physical mechanisms of fractional system. The results show that the proposed methodology with analysis in comparison with the other methods is very structured, simple, and extremely successful in analyzing the behavior of nonlinear evolution equations in the field of fractional PDEs. Assessments from this study can be utilized to provide theoretical advice for improving the fidelity and efficiency of soliton dissemination. Full article

The aim of this paper is to analyse facial similarity and apply it to identify the individuals depicted in the mural paintings of the apse of St. Leocadia Church, located in Chaves Municipality (North of Portugal), which were painted during the first quarter of the 16th century. This study also compares the portraits of this mural paintings with the oil paintings by the Proto-Renaissance Portuguese painter Nuno Gonçalves. Through this research, the feasibility of face recognition technology is explored to answer many ambiguities about Manueline stylistic identity and iconography. Additionally, it aims to associate historical events, artistic discoveries, and the expansion of portraiture as propaganda of power during the Portuguese Proto-Renaissance and Early Renaissance. On the other hand, it focuses on the prevalence of the religious and devotional over the sacred in Manueline painting. A proposal was made to identify the characters that are fundamental to the meaning of the mural paintings. An experiment was conducted on seven characters from the paintings at St. Leocadia Church, which were then compared to Nuno Gonçalves’ portraits. Facial similarity analysis was conducted on the faces portrayed in the Panels of St. Vincent, a remarkable portrait gallery from 15th-century Portugal, which has been the subject of national and international research for 130 years. Other paintings that were analysed were the oil paintings of St. Peter and St. Paul and of Infanta St. Joana, which were created by the same Quattrocento master. The purpose of the mural paintings of St. Leocadia Church could be catechetical in nature or related to the ritual practices of royal ancestor worship in royal portrait apses of the churches. It could also be associated with the Portuguese maritime expansion and the macro-imperial ideology of D. Manuel I. Full article

In response to the absence of a critical discussion of race within his historiography, this essay focuses on José Campeche (1751–1809) as an artist of African descent and argues that the socially and culturally inscribed constructs of race and Campeche’s lived experiences of them in late eighteenth-century Puerto Rico shaped and informed his participation in the arts. Campeche lived both as an artist and as a free man of color within a racialized colonial society, and as such, inquiries regarding how race affected Campeche’s life and artistic practice, and particularly how his immersion in the community of free people of color in San Juan possibly impacted the manner in which he was trained and worked, allow for a more comprehensive understanding of his art production. Using comparable examples of African descendant artists and artisans active in other colonial centers, such as Mexico City and Havana, this article elucidates connections between Campeche’s socioracial reality, his artistic career, and his work through an examination of the relationship between race and art making in Puerto Rico, the broader Caribbean region, and the greater Spanish Empire during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This analysis of Campeche’s career and work prompts new questions about the artist that have not been asked in previous scholarship, such as how the structures of race would have defined his position and interactions within colonial society and also how his complex multiracial identity may have allowed him access to the different kinds of artistic exposure, training, and opportunities he likely had in San Juan. Full article

Quilts occupy a liminal position in the histories of art and material culture. Centering analyses around specific artworks like Martha Ricks’ 1892 Coffee Tree quilt, as well as investigating women’s writing about their material production, illuminates ignored narratives about the ways black women participated in international social, political, and economic networks around the nineteenth-century Atlantic world. Quilters who emigrated from the United States to Liberia in the nineteenth century incorporated an aesthetic heritage from the American South with new visual vocabularies developing alongside the newly independent nation. Artists relied on networks with abolitionists in the United States and local textile knowledge to source materials for their work. Finished quilts circulated in local and international contexts, furthering social, political, and economic objectives. Like Harriet Powers’ bible quilts, Ricks’ quilts gained fame through exhibition and a whimsical artist’s biography. Quilts’ fragility as natural-fiber textiles in a tropical climate makes a finding a body of works difficult to examine as there are no extant Liberian quilts from the nineteenth century. However, it is possible to patch together a network of women artists, their patrons, and audiences from West Africa to North America and Europe through creative investigation of diverse historical records, including diary entries, letters, newspaper articles, and photographs. I argue that by examining Martha Ricks’ artworks, self-presentation through portraiture, and published writing, it is possible to envision a new narrative of black women’s participation in visualizing the newly-minted Republic of Liberia for Atlantic audiences. Full article

In the framework of the ‘Amorepacific Project for the conservation of Korean pictorial art’ (2018–2023) at the British Museum, three traditional Korean paintings have been investigated with the aim of supporting their conservation and obtaining information about the dyes used in the mounting textiles and other mounting elements. The paintings include a rare example of late 18th-century traditional Korean portraiture (accession number 1996,0329,0.1); a late 19th-century two-panel screen silk painting of Pyeongsaeng-do-Scenes of life (accession number 2016,3028.1); and a late 19th-century twelve-panel screen silk painting representing the Five Confucian virtues (accession number 1957,1214,0.1). The mounting textiles were investigated non-invasively by using digital microscopy and fibre optic reflectance spectroscopy (FORS), and the results guided a minimally invasive sampling campaign. Fourteen samples were analysed by using high-pressure liquid chromatography coupled with diode array and tandem mass spectrometry detectors (HPLC-DAD-MS/MS), leading to the identification of the natural dyes indigo, sappanwood (Biancaea sappan, formerly Caesalpinia sappan), amur cork tree (Phellodendron amurense) and safflower (Carthamus tinctorius) in the mounting elements of the 18th-century portrait. These results confirmed some of the non-invasive observations and were in agreement with the production date of the painting. Both natural and synthetic dyes were identified in the mounting textiles of the panel screens. Among the synthetic dyes, fuchsin (C.I. 42510), methyl violet 3B (C.I. 42536), methyl blue (C.I. 42780) and benzopurpurin 4B (C.I. 23500) were identified. These are early synthetic dyes first synthesised between the 1860s and the 1880s, suggesting that the silk textiles are likely to have been dyed in the last part of the 19th century. Full article

Children’s transition from preschool to primary school has long been recognized as a particularly challenging period that can induce parental educational anxiety. As a true portraiture of Chinese parenting, educational anxiety during this transition has attracted considerable attention, given its detrimental effects on children’s development and education. This study was aimed at identifying the characteristics of parental educational anxiety and its influencing factors during children’s transition to primary school in China. We examined parental educational anxiety and parental educational experience through a questionnaire survey. The sample comprised 26,295 families with children in grade one distributed across nine cities in five provinces. The results indicate that (1) Chinese parents experience some degree of educational anxiety during their children’s transition to primary school and are more worried about their children’s learning and social adaptation processes than about how the curriculum is taught; (2) scores for parental educational anxiety varied significantly across different regions and urban/rural areas; (3) family socioeconomic status, parents’ educational concepts, preschools’ entrance preparation work, and primary school enrollment adaptation work are all important factors influencing parental educational anxiety during this transition. Our findings highlight the prevalence of parental educational anxiety in China and the need for effective measures to facilitate a smooth transition. Full article