Portraits of Hiroshi Sugimoto: about realism and portraits

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss the materialization of the
presence of british royalty from the sixteenth century in the series of photographs entitled Portraits by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. Photographer’s own words, paradigms of photographic discourse and characteristics of photography inter-relate to the particularities of Japanese culture. The text departs from traditional photographic discourse that pervades the representation of portraits,
drawn mainly from the writings of Roland Barthes. It is precisely
representation through portraits that represent one of major
paradigms of realistic nature of photography. Realism discourse
seems to extrapolate Sugimoto’s photography to include engravings and paintings based on figurative tradition of the British royalty. The conclusion points out that Sugimoto’s portraits are structured as an ironic counterpoint to the belief of reproductive realism in the photographic image.