Loretta Lux : "Isabella" (2000)

Isabella

Loretta Lux

(2000)

Ilfochrome Print

14 15/16 x 14 15/16 in

(image from Loretta Lux's Website)

Loretta Lux is infamous for her images of children that at first glance seem jarringly pure, but become more and more estranged as the viewer dwells. It reminds me of Speers work because both of the children have these perfect faces with striking expressions. Commenting on the sheer beauty of the images, Tedd Mann from the Guggenheim tells us, “as benign as they may initially seem, however, the doll-like figures are strangely unsettling” (Mann). Here, the head of Isabella seems unfit for her frame, and her skin seems too porcelain to be real, with her huge blue eyes open and ominous, typical features of Lux’s child portraits. The whole coloring and appearance make the child appear like a doll; challenging the idea that all children are universal, by showing us how chilling that idea is. The innocence in the portrait is so over exaggerated it is haunting; reminding the viewer again, how unnatural this sort of purity and innocence is, and how that purity it is not real, but a constructed idea, just as this portrait is constructed through Lux's photographic technique. "Lux's children are blank, at best lost in a daydream, at worst more remote than the most withdrawn real-world child" (Hart, 2005). However, as much as I speculate about the meaning of this image, Lux is actually known for being ambiguous about the particular meanings behind her images, but we know "the images... are less about the subjects than they are a metaphor for the idea of childhood" (Sayre, 2006). So my take on this is that the metaphor of childhood that is at play in this image comments on the eeriness of the present ideal that children are perfectly predictable and naïve.

Artist Biography: Available at Loretta Lux and The Guggenheim

References: Hart, R. (2005). In Focus. American Photo, Vol. XVI (3). Retrieved from.
Mann, T. The Guggenheim.
Sayre, C. (2006). Lens Crafters. Time Magazine. Retrieved from.