Fragmented Identities: Reading Subjectivity in Henry Tonks' Surgical Portraits

This article considers the construction of identity in Henry Tonks' portraits of soldiers with facial injuries incurred during the 1914–18 war. The discussion draws on a number of theoretical perspectives to analyse in different ways the relationship between the physical body and the inner self, and provide critical tools for thinking through issues of identity in surgical portraiture, where the surfaces of the face are damaged, and interior flesh is exposed. Tonks' portraits occupy an ambiguous middle ground between portraiture and medical record, and the article analyses the different modes and contexts of viewing required by portraits and by medical illustrations, and considers how a close reading of the viewer's interaction with the portrait sitter in surgical portraits can also suggest ways of theorizing the viewer's experience of other forms of portraiture.