Frontal and Profile Photographs, the “Truth” and the Memory. From the Beagle Etchings (1839) and the Anthropological Photography (by the End of the 19th Century) to the Current Identification Photos

Abstract

The article proposes an analysis of front and profile typologies from the 19th century to these days. From a reflection on the photographic image and its relationship with truth and memory, a three stages review is outlined taking into account the official report of the so called Beagle journey and the etchings that illustrate it (1826-1836), the photographs taken to the Patagonian indigenous groups who were defeated after the military campaigns started in 1879 in Argentina as well as some cases of artists and human rights activists who appropriated the typology in the last 30 years. In the etchings and photographs, a tension between the romanticism conception and a positivistic point of view is evidenced. On the one hand, the indian transformation through a civilizatory education contrasted, on the other hand, with the objectivation of the indigenous bodies entrusted to scientific inquiry. On their behalf, the contemporary cases pose a shift in the interpretation of the representation in the construction of a historical memory: the posthumous nature of photography getting along with another dimension linked to its capacity of giving a renewed existence to the dead and ensuring a transcendence that defies forgetfulness.