Roger Parkinson
Stephen Perkinson's book is a tour-de-force. The topic itself has large implications; not only does this discussion go back to the beginnings of the discipline of art history, but it investigates the very nature of image-making in the later Middle Ages. Starting with the mid-fourteenth-century image of Jean II, King of France, often said to be the first independent portrait, Perkinson downplays the thorny issue of physiognomic resemblance and looks at the issue of likeness more broadly in a series of wide-ranging, innovative, and highly productive inquiries. This subtle, sensitive study succeeds in examining this material on its own terms and in the context of its own times. -Joan A. Holladay, University of Texas at Austin -- Joan A. Holladay (06/18/2009)