Portret van Gioachino Rossini before 1876

Etienne Carjat created this portrait of Gioachino Rossini using photography, a relatively new medium at the time. Carjat was not only a photographer but also a journalist, caricaturist, and writer, deeply embedded in the cultural and political life of 19th-century France. Consider how photography, emerging in an era of revolution and industrialization, democratized portraiture. Rossini, a celebrated opera composer, is depicted with a certain bourgeois dignity – his gaze averted, his posture suggesting a man of leisure and reflection. Yet, there's also a vulnerability in his expression, perhaps hinting at the personal struggles he faced later in life with declining health. As photography evolved, it challenged traditional notions of representation. Carjat’s work invites us to consider the complex interplay between public image and private identity, as photography allowed for both the construction and the deconstruction of the self. What does it mean to capture a person's likeness? What does it mean to look?