Can we identify a portrait without ever using an argument based on resemblance? That is the challenge posed in this article. In our first episodes we sketched the portrait of a young village photographer on the banks of the Erie Canal, John B. Roberts — the hero, as it were, of our serial — then […]
Catégorie : Newsletter
EIGHT FACES ONE MAN? First of all, we really must thank Mr. Van Son for his enthusiasm and his boldness in reigniting a debate; so many debates have died out since various museums have turned into fortresses. People are no longer allowed to discuss their passions or their methods. What a tremendous loss! Let’s hope […]
We are proud to introduce the English version of an article which will be published in the next issue of Partita Doppia. Some subjects have become so celebrated that discussion around them has all but ceased. Vincent van Gogh’s photographic portraits are one of them. In his article, Jacques van Son presents a comparative discussion […]
ON THE DECISION TO COLLECT PHOTOGRAPHS Foreword For one hundred and fifty years, from 1839 to 1989, human beings produced images on paper, on glass, on metal, on porcelain, on cloth, on anything that could hold a trace of light. I will not call these images « analog. » I prefer to say physical photography, or material […]
The Train That Made Lincoln Visible In our first episodes we sketched the portrait of a young village photographer on the banks of the Erie Canal, John B. Roberts — the hero, as it were, of our serial — and the rather extraordinary story of how the single surviving copy of a small-town newspaper turned […]
PARTITA DOPPIA-III This third issue bears the title « Quando la fotografia diceva la verità ». This theme—“When Photography Told the Truth”—served as the guiding thread for the internship of this year’s Erasmus students, in 2026. Richard Avedon said: “All photographs are accurate; none is the truth.” For seventeen years now, Michele Smargiassi, in his book *An Authentic […]
This is the second episode of One Day in the Life of John B. Roberts, picking up where our Lyons Republican story left off and following a young canal‑town photographer into the years of Lincoln, the Civil War and Frederick Douglass.
Harar, ancient city in southern Ethiopia Rimbaud arrived in Harar for the first time in December 1880, after a journey from Aden to Zeila, followed by a twenty-day horseback caravan through the Somali Desert. At that time, the city was an ancient Muslim emirate under Egyptian control, with a population consisting of Harari, Oromo, Somalis, Arabs, Indians, and […]
INVITO A PARTECIPARE Biennale di Senigallia Edizione Intermedia – 2026 We invite historians, legal scholars, photographers, archivists, experts, and image scholars to submit contributions reflecting on the evidentiary and documentary role of photography in the digital age, across courts, archives, and everyday practices of the gaze. The study day will be held on Friday, June […]
PARTITA DOPPIA-II This second issue comes at a moment when the alignment of some major technology companies with political power has led many users to reconsider their choices. Claude — Anthropic’s artificial intelligence — carries the name of Claude Shannon. This is not a decorative coincidence: it is an intellectual lineage that this issue sets […]
THE LYONS REPUBLICAN Clyde, Lyons, Galen, Wayne, New York, The Empire State Clyde and Lyons, in Wayne County, New York, are paired communities whose identities pivot on a subtle distinction: Clyde remains an incorporated village within the Town of Galen, while Lyons, long the county seat and once an incorporated village, is now a hamlet […]
BIENNALE DI SENIGALLIA “ARTHUR RIMBAUD AND PHOTOGRAPHY” II. Portraits of Rimbaud on the Shores of the Red Sea. Conference by Hugues Fontaine On the conference day, second speaker was Hugues Fontaine, well known for his meticulous investigations into photographs of the Horn of Africa from the period when Arthur Rimbaud stayed there, particularly in Obock […]