Humanism

Humanism and Global Portraiture: From Steichen’s Family of Man to Galimberte’s Toy Stories

Image Credit: Boredpanda.com

I’ve been seeing a growing trend on the internet for the past year or so: sites like Buzzfeed and Bored Panda advertising series like Gabriele Galimberte’s Toy Stories a.k.a. “Children from Around the World with Their Favorite Toys,” or, another popular one, “Families from around the World with a Month’s Worth of Food.” What is the source of our cultural compulsion to view these massive collections of human possessions? Moreover, why do we like to see all of the peoples of every nation juxtaposed alongside one another? Visual Rhetoric is not only the study of individual signs, images, and symbols, but also of the messages that images impart as a collective. In the era of the internet list and the online photo gallery, images are often presented in groups to form a broader thesis. So what exactly is the thesis behind these “People from around the World Holding X” or “Doing Y”?

In looking at these catalogues of humanity writ large, I’m reminded of an exhibit which made its debut long before the era of viral internet photo collections: Edward Steichen’s The Family of Man.

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