by
Sandro Pintus
New techniques in portraiture
The camera and the dark room of the future
at the Alinari exhibition on portraiture
On entering
the "I and his double" photographic exhibition, in Florence
until June 25th, one at once notices a strong, almost excessive contrast,
that immediately switches the visitor from one century to another, from
a bidimensional reality to a virtual reality and from a romantic attitude
towards portraiture to a vision of the future.
Portrait with a studio camera in a drawing of the period |
There is something else in the room the Alinari Brothers once used
for their sittings, which has been set up again especially for the exhibition,
and which saw the passage of members of the Savoy family, actresses from
the theatre, and the bourgeoisie, all posing either out of vanity or for
history. It is an object that supplants the strange and mysterious physical-chemical
process with light-sensitive gelatin and chemical baths that could make
the image appear almost by magic on the paper and filled those who saw
it with wonder. It is "the Computer". In order to give us a
glimpse of the future, "the Computer" is linked up to a digital
camera which can take photographs of the visitors. To everyone's amazement,
these images can then be elaborated, touched up, coloured and changed
in real time. This is the latest in a series of processors that no longer
need film, dark room, or a physical-chemical process to carry out a classic
portrait; however they do need a whole lot of bits per inch. This is the
fruit of modern technology and represents the obligatory changeover that
will take the portrait towards the Third Millennium. It has not lost its
magic. See also: A century of photographic
portraiture
FAN-Florence ART News
a cura di
Silvia Messeri &
Sandro Pintus
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