Photography in the construction of a public image: Xul Solar and his portraits

Resumo

The article investigates portraits of Xul Solar published in the Argentinian press and organized by his wife in a newspaper clippings folder. The photographs, considered as constructions of social illusions through the usage of visual conventions (Burke), allow us to see a visual component of Xul Solar figure, just as it is presented in the media. The portrait is the result of an interaction between at least two forces: the image that the photographer wants to produce and the one that the portrayed wants to project, who, in this case, dominates the visual language in which he is portrayed, because he is a painter. We organized the material in series and analyzed them by files that allowed the decomposition of the image in minimum units (Becker, Mauad). We understand that its study allows us to observe aspects of the production of a figure of an extravagant creator, who is more connected with spiritual and metaphysical dimensions than with the surrounding reality.