Object Description (Figure 1)

This is a black and white photograph of a female dancer, according to the title, by Lotte Jacobi, taken in 1929 Berlin. While the most representative characteristic of a dancer should be his/her body movements instead of the facial features, this photo is a close up of this dancer’s face. There are no overwhelming details in this photo; instead, this is an image that showcase simplicity by using smooth lines of the dancers face and her headwear. The dancer’s face takes up the bottom central position of the photo, and contrast severely with its background. It immediately attracts the audience’s attention by being the brightest spot. Her hair is also blended into the darkness of her hat and accents her round face even more. The dancer stare directly into the camera, with a gaze that is not ambitious but firm. Her dark lips and thin brows are all the popular makeup trend of that time period. The bottom of the frame is cut off right on her chin, leaving the tip of her chin outside the frame. Her round hat takes up most of the area of the picture and becomes the background. The audiences almost have to look carefully in order to recognize it is a hat with wide brim due to the lack of contrasts on the hat itself.

Coming from a family of photographers, Jacobi did not restrain herself within the traditional realm of photography, especially in the area of portraits (Moore, 1979). Instead of using her camera to capture the model’s accurate appearance, Jacobi had always tried to push the boundary of the conventional representation of the model. As she once famously said “my style is the style of the person in front of me.” Jacobi intended to emphasize on the spiritual part of the model (Moore, 2004). As this work Head of the Dancer (Figure 1) shows to the audience, Jacobi chose to capture the face of the dancers, and used the dancer’s hat as a darker background to make her facial features even more prominent in the picture; whereas the most representative characteristic for a dancer should be her body parts and movements. Similar challenges of the conventional portraiture can also be found on her self- portrait (Figure 2) . The picture was taken in front of a mirror, and Jacobi, who was holding shutter of the camera, is looking at the audience with her serious eyes. She looked focused yet slightly bewildered in this self-portrait. Instead of depicting a traditional image of a “Jewish woman”, Jacobi captured the image of a photographer in the process of her working (Silverman, 2009). She was not posing properly, and her facial expression was detouring from a conventional female portrait; however, this representation of herself is in motion and vividly expresses the photographer’s style (coordinates with the above quotation). Referring back to Head of the Dancer, instead of capturing the most defining feature of a dancer, Jacobi not only offered her recognition on the face of the dancer, which is usually neglected, but also gave the viewers an opportunity to take a look at the dancer’s face. Jacobi challenged the conventional image of a dancer, and more importantly, she raised the question of whether the traditionally accepted features of the person in order to actually define the person.