Looking at Archives in Art

Studying the depiction of records, documents, books, reading, and writing in art is more than an aesthetic exercise for archivists. The authors examine a selection of British and American portraits and genre paintings, discussing their presentation of records as well as the contexts in which the paintings were created and the importance of the records depicted. Archivists can use this "iconography of archives" to understand contemporary perceptions of records by artists, sitters, and viewers, thereby placing textual records more fully in their historical context.