The Poetics of Portraiture in the Italian Renaissance

Focusing on paintings by Giorgione, Titian, Parmigianino, and Raphael, Jodi Cranston explores the significance of the formal inventions that address the presence of the beholder, particularly the introduction of a range of poses and self-reflexive gestures, and how such a visual dialogue with the beholder encourages the viewer to perceive the portrait as open and responsive, rather than as a fixed commemoration of the past. Cranston also analyzes the term 'portrait' as it is used in contemporary literature, which describes a resemblance of minds and affections between the sitter and the viewer derived from encounters, such as speaker and listener, lover and beloved, and self and other. Bringing together a wide range of literary and visual sources and applying methods derived from literary theory and structural analysis, this study demonstrates how sixteenth-century portraits extend contemporary efforts to perceive and receive painting as a kind of poetry.