The Political Portrait: Leadership, Image and Power, Edited by Luciano Cheles and Alessandro Giacone, ISBN: 9781138054233, Routledge, 368 pages. Hardback £120.00; E-Book £33.29 https://www.routledge.com/The-Political-Portrait-Leadership-Image-and-Power/Cheles-Giacone/p/book/9781138054233

Excerpt

Visuals are a key aspect of branding and marketing. Carefully constructed images convey information about the brand’s values, its target market and the core message of the moment. Billboards and advertising across the media environment are a part of the visual landscape we inhabit, with only the most isolated communities out of their reach. The use of visuals in politics predates commercial advertising. From the busts and frescos of the ancient world, to the portraits of the emperors and monarchs, to the current age where political leaders appear across newspaper headlines, news bulletins and social media feeds. Cheles and Giacone’s collection of studies explore one hundred years of the portraiture of leaders, capturing the fall of the ancient regime, the era of European dictators and subsequent rise of democratic, semi-democratic and autocratic regimes. The work charts the significant differences between regimes and periods, as well as the similarities and the way symbolism denotes the differing forms of power leaders exercise. The period also sees the end of total control over image management. Whereas once the official portrait became the one ‘true’ image of the leader, the ages of television and more recently social media has given greater control over how a leader is perceived to journalists, satirists and the creators of memes, mash-ups and even deepfakes. …