Walker Evans Self-Portrait 1927

One of the traditional objectives of a portrait or a self-portrait is to portray the person as being recognisable.  Rembrandt painted 40 self-portraits and in each of them he is recognisable and the same can be said for other artists such as Caravaggio, Durer and even Gainsborough.   All of these great artists created self-portraits of where they can be identified through the realistic depiction of their facial features. 

But this has not always been the case.  It wasn’t until the creation of modernism and the abandonment of producing a realistic depiction that portraits, including self-portraits started to change.  Line and form were being replaced with more abstract and indistinct depictions, such as cubism and Picasso portraying himself with sharp angular lines and big eyes instead of the curved soft natural lines usually found.  Indeed, it is easy to believe that in the early 20th century, line and form have been sacrificed on the altar of modernism and will be disfigured for the rest of eternity.

But in this ever-changing environment, photographers also sought to find ways to challenge line and form.  This in itself can seem surprising as the format itself relies on line and form for its realistic depiction, to be able to recreate a scene in pictorial form as if reflected in a mirror.  Photography owes its sense of veracity and realism to the lines and forms recreating a scene, to make an image that the viewer can understand and relates to the empirical world in some way.

 So, it can be surprising when the photographer rebels against this limitation and tries to break these restrictions.  In this image Evans has portrayed himself as being indistinct, a blurred photograph of a man screaming.  The eyes seem to be nearly closed, the mouth is wide open and the image projects a sense of anger, a fury that is instinctual and unstoppable, a rage that is all consuming and uncontrollable. 

Interestingly though, there is no hint as to what Walker Evans is angry about. Evans could be expressing anger towards a partner or a piece of equipment or even being short changed in a transaction.  Indeed, it’s possible that Evans has just stubbed his toe!  We just simply do not know, but we can tell that the anger is unlikely to be directed to himself as there is no self-mutilation.  Evans seems to be projecting anger outwards instead of inwards, that he is angry with someone or something, that this anger is expressed in reaction to something rather than being a permanent state of affairs. 

Other elements within the image add to the levels of anger expressed within this self-portrait.  The use of high contrast cannot be overlooked as this adds to the sense of anger.  The dark clothing and the light background enhance the contrast adding to the sense of wrath within the photograph.  The dark clothing frames and emphasises the screaming mouth, highlighting the sense of vehement rage within the self-portrait. 

The sense of anger and rage from the self-portrait is the most tangible element that the viewer encounters.  There is a sense of fury within the pose, an anger that is uncontrollable and beyond reason, a vision of someone outside rationality and Logic.  The use of motion blur within the composition enhances the sense of rage, whilst at the same time diminishing the identity of Walker Evans.  It is this element that gives a sense of generic anger, that the fury does not just belong to Evans, but is universal and identifiable across the spectrum of humanity.

However, if the image did not have motion blur and that the identity of Walker Evans was less obscured, then there would be a different interpretation.  It could be a case that if the image was pin sharp then the anger expressed would be identified as Walker’s anger and would be missing the quality of being generic.  It would lead to the viewer identifying with the anger by identifying with Walker Evans first and using him as a conduit for the expression of anger, rather than just the anger itself.  It would lose its sense of rawness, of not being primordial but instead an emotion that is modified and controlled by the person themselves.