JeanetteKohlFacingObjects.IndexandExamplarinessinRenaissancePortraitCultureThispaperwilldiscussanunderexploredsideofRenaissanceportraits, in itsrelationtowhatIcallthe‘imagepolicyoffaces’in15thcenturyFlorence.Mydiscussionwill focusonagroupofastoundingportraitbustsbasedoneitherlife casts or death masks. They were meant not only for individualrepresentationsbutalsoforreproductionanddistribution.Basedoninterestsboth in the objects’ materiality and ‘facture’ and their representationalfunctions,mypaperreflectsupontheconceptof‘indexicality’anditsrelationto concepts of ‘virtue’ and ‘agency’ in Renaissance culture. As imagesgenerated by immediate touch, by the application of artistic rawmaterial tothe human body, the objects claim unquestionable truthfulness whilecircumventing artistic mimesis. The key questions I pose are: Why didportraitsbasedtosuchahighdegreeonlargelymechanicalprinciples,whichprima vista counteract common notions of the Renaissance artist’s creativepowers, become such valued and commonly produced items in fifteenthcentury Florence? What role does the production and display of utmostsimilitude – as an antique point of reference – play in a culture deeplypermeated by ideals of ethical and aesthetical ‘mirroring’? And last but notleast:Howdo religiouspractices and the emergingportrait culture of Saintsrelatetosecularportraitureandthewaysinwhichtheywereperceivedbythebeholder? I will be able to show why and how antique frames of referencebecame a powerful foil for new forms of largely ‘non-artistic’ agency in art,andhowconceptsofof‘individuality’andexamplarinessarecentralforanewunderstanding of sculpted portraits’ political, moral, and genealogicalfunctions–inaculturewheretheparticularbecomestheexemplarybymeansofindexicalreproduction.

BESONDERS/EXEMPLARISCH Morphomatische Fallstudien zu Biographie und Portrait Abstract

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