DOI Heft:
Nr. 4
DOI Artikel:Poprzęcka, Maria: "And I still see their faces": on Jan Matejko's Physiognomies
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18938#0101
1. Jan Matejko, The Sermon of Skarga, 1864, detail: Piotr Skarga, Warsaw, Muzeum Narodowe
tator, Józef Tischner, adds: "It cannot be possessed or captivated; it is not disposable.
It means nothing but itself. The face is a face"11. From this angle, the science of physiognomy
and the history of physiognomical representation, the latter related to the former, may be seen
as a persistent striving towards "coming into posession" of a face, reducing it to the role of
the carrier of meaning; perceiving, understanding and representing it as something existing
beyond itself. The physiognomic tradition, founded on the conviction that the human face is
"open", is long and has several ranges of applicability. It draws conclusions about the naturę
of people on the basis of their appearances, primarily faces; it establishes types according to
the gender, age, temperament, psycho-physical complexion, ethnic origin, and proposes paral-
lelisms between people and animals. Ali these ideas may be traced over the history of the re-
presentation of physiognomies. In Renaissance and Baroąue art, the motif of animal-like
U. J. Tischner, "Emmnnuel Leyinas", Znak, 1976, No. 1, p. 80.
87
tator, Józef Tischner, adds: "It cannot be possessed or captivated; it is not disposable.
It means nothing but itself. The face is a face"11. From this angle, the science of physiognomy
and the history of physiognomical representation, the latter related to the former, may be seen
as a persistent striving towards "coming into posession" of a face, reducing it to the role of
the carrier of meaning; perceiving, understanding and representing it as something existing
beyond itself. The physiognomic tradition, founded on the conviction that the human face is
"open", is long and has several ranges of applicability. It draws conclusions about the naturę
of people on the basis of their appearances, primarily faces; it establishes types according to
the gender, age, temperament, psycho-physical complexion, ethnic origin, and proposes paral-
lelisms between people and animals. Ali these ideas may be traced over the history of the re-
presentation of physiognomies. In Renaissance and Baroąue art, the motif of animal-like
U. J. Tischner, "Emmnnuel Leyinas", Znak, 1976, No. 1, p. 80.
87