“If you spent your life concentrating on what everyone else thought of you, would you forget who you really were? What if the face you showed the world turned out to be a mask… with nothing beneath it?”
— Jodi Picoult, Nineteen Minutes
Volker Hermes lampoons traditional portraiture in his Hidden Portraits.
Tired of seeing paintings of countless puffed-up toffs rendered in oils for posterity, German visual artist Volker Hermes breathes life into the boring old routine with his updates on Old Masters paintings. His Hidden Portraits use digital technology and collage to refocus our gaze on symbols of self-representation and social status embedded in such paintings.
Much as with those witty twists on the 18th Century fashion for skyscraper hair, Hermes takes the fashion for displaying social status through clothing and playfully satirises it through exaggeration. The human inside their armour of symbols of rank and expensive accessories is further hidden within their masks.
The entire face is covered by an absurd mask, piled-up fabric or a ceremonial wig. But nothing is added to the paintings. All the changes come from within the original itself.
Portrait paintings are the only pictorial testimonies of people until the invention of photography. They are defining our visual idea of a historic society. However, portraits were a luxury and limited exclusively to a privileged elite. The intention in portrait painting was not merely to depict individuals, but rather their representational significance. Thus, opulent clothes and elaborate accessories and attributes in the paintings attest to high social standing.
However, when the faces of the protagonists are concealed, their individuality retreats behind the symbols of social significance and opulent surfaces that bear testimony to the splendour of the upper class.
– Volker Hermes
See more masks we use to conceal and manipulate on the site.
Via: Volker Hermes, where you can buy prints of his work.
Would you like to support Flashbak?
Please consider making a donation to our site. We don't want to rely on ads to bring you the best of visual culture. You can also support us by signing up to our Mailing List. And you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. For great art and culture delivered to your door, visit our shop.
