It has been said that a picture says thousand words, art should speak for itself. Within the social sciences, there is recognition images are not merely illustrations, but “texts” can be read, studied and interpreted in different ways: they visual narratives. When we look at work of art, respond with our own thoughts, feelings ideas about what it communicates. portrait specifically, just lookin...

Abstract Scant biographical detail is known about the life of England’s first professional woman writer, Aphra Behn (d.1689), which makes it strange that scholars have shown little interest in surviving portraits her. This article provides comprehensive survey contemporaneous portraiture Behn, outlining provenance these works and summarizing their various claims to authenticity. In doing so, hi...

Compiled by George William Jackson, the Jackson Family Album contains 34 cartes de visite or "cdv" visiting cards. These wallet-sized portraits, roughly the size of a small playing card, replaced the daguerrotype and tintype as the most popular form of portraiture in the mid 1860s. The stories behind the portraits clearly reveal that Stonewall Jackson had much company in achieving greatness wit...