“Just as social media users today are performing for the public and posturing themselves in a variety of ways—whether they’re aware of it or not— portraiture has long incorporated symbols and other design elements to help define and express identity, while also associating its subjects with particular causes or traditions.”
“Sam Redman, an assistant professor of history and culture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, points out that Facebook’s rainbow filters are part of a strong tradition of associating social movements with colors and symbols.”
“Sometimes, individuals construct their identities by situating themselves in close proximity to a symbol, or a symbol-bearer. Medieval patrons often commissioned works in which they were depicted alongside saints or biblical figures. Some even insisted on being inserted into tableaux of saints who are being tortured, says Elizabeth Losh, the director of the culture, art, and technology program at University of California, San Diego. The Renaissance ushered in a different sort of representation, however. Self-representation, as in Parmigianino’s Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1523/24), began to emphasize “the combination of seeing and being seen,” according to Losh.”
““The selfie is never entirely about the self,” she says. “It’s a performance for those in one’s social networks, and it’s also a performance in relationship to structures of power around gender, race, class, and sexuality.””
“given the cost of blue pigment in the Middle Ages, it would quite literally have cost Luttrell more to make his political statement than it does a Facebook user today who adds a rainbow filter. The same goes for Leyster, who surely spent considerable time building the painting up layer by layer. But the human desire, or need, to construct multi-layered identities that simultaneously obstruct the self while relating it within broader contexts, is the same. Sometimes it occurs with many dabs of the brush over several months, and at others with an instantaneous click on a social-media app. But don’t let the pace fool you; there’s a lot of history irrevocably tied up in that social-media moment.”