Archives in Art

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Looking at Archives in Art

Author(s): Barbara L. Craig and James M. O'TooleSource: The American Archivist, Vol. 63, No. 1 (Spring - Summer, 2000), pp. 97-125Published by: Society of American ArchivistsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40283822 .Accessed: 13/04/2011 10:32

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The American Archivist

Looking a t Archives i n A r tBarbaraL. Craig andJames M. OTooleAbstractStudying the depiction of records, documents, books, reading, and writing in art is morethan an aesthetic exercise for archivists. The authors examine a selection of British andAmerican portraits and genre paintings, discussing their presentation of records as well asthe contexts in which the paintingswere created and the importance of the records depicted.Archivists can use this "iconography of archives"to understand contemporary perceptionsof records by artists, sitters, and viewers, thereby placing textual records more fully in theirhistorical context.

Introductiondocuments, books, and the other "stufF of archivesare nowso commonplace that archivistsand non-archivistsalike have ceasedto takemuch notice of them on their own terms.In contrast to earlier

times, when documentary materials were more rare, contemporary life isfilled with the products of record-making processes. This familiarityoftenproduces a sense that we know all we need to about the purposes of records,andfrom the earliestprofessionalwritings n NorthAmericatherehasbeen nearunanimityon the question of whyarchivesexist. Beginning with ErnstPosner,archivists avestressed hatrecordscome into existenceprincipallyo accomplishvery practicaland immediatepurposes.Surveying he originsof recordkeepingin the ancient world,Posner argued that from the verybeginnings of writing,recordswere made to keep trackof the mundane details of human life andbehavior.Whether n Egypt,Babylon,Athens,orRome,the impulseto keep trackof people, goods, and resourceswascrucialin bringing into being the recordswhich might one day be gathered and preserved in archives.Another writerstated this same viewmore succinctly,maintaining that the causes of recordscreation could be summed up in the phrase "countingand accounting."11Ernst Posner, Archivesn theAncientWorld Cambridge, Mass.:HarvardUniversity Press, 1972); TrudyHuskamp Peterson, "Counting and Accounting: A Speculation on Change in RecordkeepingPractices,"AmericanArchivist b (Spring 1982): 131-34.

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Morerecently, manyarchivistshavebegun to suspect thatthere is more tothe story.Not only have these writerschallenged the historicalscholarshiponwhich some of the earlier conclusions are based, but they have also begun toexplore the larger and franklymore interesting roles thatrecords and docu-mentaryprocesses playin human affairs.Hugh Taylor, or example, first calledattentionto the double meaningof the word"deed,"used to designateboth theact of transferringpropertyand the written nstrumentbywhich such a transferwas rendered official and its efficacy maintained. The work of medievalistMichaelClanchyand others has demonstrated that the act ofmakinga writtenrecordisfreightedwith all sortsof meanings, especiallyin societiesundergoingthe transition fromoralityto literacy.Anthropologistsareexploring the role ofdocumentation in the largersocietal projectsof rememberingand forgetting.As contemporaryarchivistshave begun to read more widelyin this interdisci-plinary iterature and applyits insights,manyhave come to the conclusion thatrecords and recordmakinghavedeep culturalmeaningsand significance.2Those who wish to explore these richer dimensionsof the seeminglyunex-ceptional objects which crowd the shelves of archives and libraries will findmuch to ponder byexploringwhatmightbe called the iconographyof archives.Studyingthe ways n which archival records have been portrayedin the visualarts tells us something important about how those records are perceived byartist and viewer alike. Records anddocuments are seldom the primaryobjectsof an artist'sattention,but theyappear n surprisingnumbers n paintingswhichare ostensibly"about"something else. The observeraccustomed to looking forbooks, manuscripts,and records will find them in large numbers in portraits,still lifes, and genre paintings. The waysin which documentary objects arepresented and how they are used in conjunction with other artisticelementsmayrevealsomething aboutwhat we have come to call the culturalpenetrationof archives.If the stuff of archives is so routine as to be included in worksofartintended to depict other things, archivesmayindeed possessa deeper sub-liminal power perhapsliterallyso.We makeno claim to expertise in art or arthistory.In fact,we havechosento look at artwiththe archivist'snterestin documentarypractices,workplaces,and the society's ideas about these things. Portraitsand genre paintings havethe advantageof being accessible to viewerswithout the artspecialist'sknowl-edge. Anyone can gaze at a portraitand understand it as depicting a personin a setting. The immediacyof the experience comes from the sense of "like-ness"to realpeople, places,and activities orwhichwe, the viewers,more often2Rosalind Thomas, Literacy nd Oralityn AncientGreece(Cambridge:Cambridge UniversityPress, 1992),esp. ch. 7; Hugh Taylor, "'MyVeryAct and Deed': Some Reflections on the Role of Textual Records inthe Conduct of Human Affairs,"AmericanArchivist 1 (Fall 1988): 456-69; M. T. Clanchy,FromMemoryto WrittenRecord:England, 1066-1307, 2d ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993); Kenneth E. Foote, ToRemember and Forget:Archives,Memory,and Culture,"AmericanArchivist 3 (Summer 1990): 378-92;James M. O'Toole, "TheSymbolicSignificance of Archives,"AmericanArchiviste (Spring 1993): 234-55.

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than not have no direct experience. However, portraits and conversationpiecesare not simply ikenesses,although theyhavethat claimupon our interest.Imagesof people and placesin art are uniquely shaped by socialand aestheticideas interpreted byartistsandexpressed n theirskillsof composition,color andmodeling.3What we propose to do here is to explore, in a preliminaryway, howarchiveshave been representedin British andAmericanpainting,especiallyinportraitureand in the last two centuries.One could, of course,examine a muchwiderrangeof artisticoutput from a longer historicalperiod and from a widerculturalorbit: we urge others to do so. In the hope of initiatingbroad consid-erationof this topic, however,we propose to examine a number of examplesofthe depiction of archivesin art. We are interested in whether there is a usefultypologybywhichwemightclassifyhesedepictions,andwhat thatcategorizationmight tell those interested in archivesabout the objects of their attention.The notion of context or, more accurately,of contexts helps situatea workof artwithinthe complexityof its source, execution, and purpose. Many ayersof information are bound up in any work.4It is important alwaysto keep inmind that paintings by professional artistswere most often products of com-mercialtransactions.Portraits, or example,wereusuallycommissioned,eitherby the sitter,or in some casesby organizations,which hung likenesses of theirimportantofficersin principalboardrooms.Asmightbe expected, establishedartistswith reputations built on known worksattractedthe most fashionableclienteleandsubstantialees.Everyartistandeverysitterwouldneed to negotiatebusinessdetailsaboutthe portrait,notably tssize,price,andgeneralconception.Full-lengthportraitswere more costly than half-sizedlikenesses or busts andcould onlybe affordedbythe wealthy.Itwasnot uncommon for sittersto wantcopies of their portraits o give to their friends,businessassociates,or politicalallies. These were also done by the artistor his studio workers.The aura oforiginalityadded a cachet thatwasasmuch valuedin the pastas it is today.Although the painterlystyleof artistsshaped their depiction of a subject,the settings, props,and poses were chosen for their possible effects and mean-ings. Portraitswere always ntended to be hung for attentivegazing.The artistand the sitterwould havebeen cognizantof the unseen viewerin makingtheirselections. In fact,viewersare stillactiveparticipants n artbecause their expe-rience of it is personal, molded by the knowledge they bring to the work.Archivists, or example, will look at art with a special knowledge of documents3A good introduction to portrait, genre, and history painting is David Piper "ACommentary on theDevelopment of Portraiture,"in EuropeanPortraits1600-1900 in theArtInstituteof Chicago,edited by

SusanWise (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1978): 9-18 and the entries in the Dictionary fArt(NewYork: Grove's Dictionaries, 1996) on "Portraiture,"25: 273-87; "Genre," 12: 286-96; and "HistoryPainting," 14: 581-89.

4A valuable reviewof the theories and methods of art critics and historians is Laurie Schneider Adams,TheMethodologiesfArt:An IntroductionNew York:Harper Collins, 1996).

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and their uses. We argue that experiencing art affords archivistsa privilegedview of recordsin the context of contemporarysurroundingsand artisticaims.5The most common waysfor representing archival records in art includethe following general categories.Sometimes the book or document depicted ismerelya prop, something for the painting's subjectto hold, an objectwith noparticularsignificance.Sometimes, however,the document is a specifickind of

prop, one bearinga special connection to the subjectas a kind of professionalaccessory.A portraitmight show a ministerholding a Bible, for example; thatof a merchantmight show an account book. Morerarelybut stilloften enough,a work of artmayinclude a depiction of a veryspecific and even identifiabledocument. There are also a number ofdepictions of the acts of makingrecordsand of reading books or documents. Mostunusual, but from our perspectivemost interesting,are those images in which a record or document is central tothe meaning of the painting, a workof artin which the record itself becomes,in effect, a characterin the painting.Whatfollows is an explorationof each ofthese general types.Records and Documents in Modern British andAmerican Painting

Modern portraitureand genre paintingsdeveloped within the context ofRenaissancehumanism,which focused on man and his activities.Portraitsexe-cuted from life became more popular in the fifteenth centuryand thereafterdeveloped into a significantfeature of artin Europeand beyond. Genre paint-ings depicted the life experienced by common people, rather than biblicalscenes, mythology, or the events of national history. The trompe l'oeil, forexample, was a popular genre painting. These deceived viewersinto seeingthree dimensions through ultrareal representationof objectssuch as musicalinstruments, still lifes and vistasframed by a window all allowed the artist'sskill to please by deceiving the eye. Illustration#i, by Collyer, (K 1700s) anEnglishspecialistin the trompe l'oeil, depicts a notice keeper used to hold theobjetsrouvsf a desk paperswaitingto be read or responded to, and variouspieces of equipment for writing,including a quill, a quill cutter, sealing wax,and a parchment stretcher. The cameo inset is of the late King Charles I.Miniatureswithinlargerworksdisplayedthe artist'sskill in portraitureand the5Art has been a rich source of evidence about contemporary decoration and furnishing, dress, land-scape, nature, and animals. A delightful example of their use as source is Robin Gibson, TheFace n theCorner:Animals in Portraitsfirm theCollectionof theNationalPortraitGallery London: National PortraitGallery, 1998). Other titles indicative of the breadth of use are Peter Thornton, AuthenticDcor:The

Domestic nterior1620-1920 (New York:Viking, 1984), John Fairley, TheArt of theHorse(New York:Abbeville Press, 1995) and Dora Thornton, The Scholar in His Study: Ownershipand ExperiencenRenaissanceItaly (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998). Of perhaps special interest toarchivists and librarians is GarryApgar, et al., TheNewspapern Art (Spokane, Wash.: New MediaVentures, 1996).

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ILLUSTRATION I. Collyer, Trompe'oeilwithunitingmaterials.Courtesy of Victoria and AlbertMuseum, London.

king,asmartyr,was asubjectwhich combined royalistdeas,religioussentimentand momento orihemes. The pamphlet pinpointsthe date (1698) and the letteridentifies the artist. The subjectschosen would be familiar to viewers becausethe success of the deception was based on knowingthe objectsin life.Writingnstrumentsand documents had a number of uses for theartist.Theycould,for example,be furnishingswhichhelped set the scene. PieterBreughel's(1564-1638) Lawyer's fficen RentDay(flliis.#2)is a good exampleof the artist'ssense of place,people, and surroundings.The painting,under differenttitles,isfoundin severalgalleries thesubjectwaspopular,realityundoubtedlybeing partof its apparentlywide appeal.Renterspresstheirpetitionsand notes to the col-lector;the papersconveybusyness.The advocateon his bench is also surroundedbypapers.However,he seems weariedbyall the activity.The scene is,even today,full of fun. The countinghouse settingdrawsus, asarchivists,nto a styleof busi-ness of which we have no directexperience.The profusionof documents,in thisplaceand at thistime,suggests hat iterateconventionswere more thanlikelywellunderstoodby those who would have been viewingthe pictures,whether thesepeople were actuallyfunctionallyliterate or not. Documents and writingwerehighlyvisible n society,makingthem popularchoices asprops.Propscould servebothpracticaland artisticpurposes,especially n portraits.Lettersand envelopes, for example, seamlessly ntroduce text, perhapsnamingthe sitter or painteror proclaimingsome other specialdistinction deemed note-

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illustration 2. PieterBrueghel,Laxvyer'sfficen RentDay.Courtesy f BurghleyHouseCollectionLincolnshire,UK/BridgemanArtLibrary.

worthyas partof the composition. Theycould equallybe integralto the artist'sconcept and thuscarefullychosen piecesfor the setting.Writingand documentsalong withbooks and ledgerswould be the naturalaccessories or writers,engi-neers, politicians, awyers,and businessmen.Propscould also serveartisticpur-poses,however,especiallyassymbols or abstractionswhich wereresistant o pic-torialrepresentation,deas such aslearningor administration r commerce. Thepracticaland the artistic could be joined, as seen in the portraitof ThomasCromwelldone byHansHolbein theYoungeron one of his twotripsto Englandto paintfor the court. The originalis nowlost,but thispainting,byan unknownartistafter Holbein'sworkof 1534,capturesthe sitter'swile and hardness n theconcentration of the gaze and the clench of the fist.6 Illus.#3)As a clerkin theservice of CardinalWolsey,Cromwellforged ajustifiable reputationfor acutepoliticalsense and forprodigiousadministrative bilities.He washead-huntedbythe king, HenryVIII,in whose service Cromwellacquired poweras a fixer. HeorchestratedHenry'sdivorce from Katherineof Aragonand handled the disso-lutionof the religioushouses in England, ncludingthe accountingof allmoney,goods, and property hat came to the Crownas a result.The document on the table next to Cromwell'shand is addressed"7o ourtrustyand rightwell belovedCouncillor ThomasCromwell,Masterof ourJewelHouse".6Detailsof the iconography f ThomasCromwell,1st Earlof Essexare in RoyStrong,d., Tudor ndJacobeanortraitsLondon:NationalPortraitGallery, 969),113-14. NPG#1727isa copyof unknowndate of a portraitn the FrickCollection n NewYork.

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ILLUSTRATION 3. Hans Holbein, ThomasCromwell, st EarlofEssex.Courtesy of the NationalPortraitGallery,London.

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It identifies the sitter,the date the portraitwasdone, and the event consideredworthyof commemoration. However,beyond satisfyinga need to identifyandname, the artist's choice of a document along with the tools for writing, allprominent props on the table in this portrait,deliberatelydrawus to conclu-sionsaboutthe subjectand his career. Aspartof abiography,these specialtoolsidentify Cromwell with his occupation as an administratormuch in the samewaythat a swordmight identify a soldier. Cromwellexercised authority,notthroughwealth,family,or arms,but byusing records to control the machineryof government in the serviceof the king.In American art, records appear as props in portraiturealmost from thevery beginning. What is thought to be the earliest identifiable self-portrait nthe EnglishNorth Americancolonies, that of CaptainThomas Smith (paintedabout 1690), is a highly allegorical depiction of the seaman, merchant, andamateurpainter. Echoing the traditional mementomon hemes of Europeanart,the likeness shows Smith surrounded by the tools of his maritime trade,together with reminders that the things of this world are fleeting in compari-son with those of the next. Spreadout on a table beforehim is a document bear-ing his monogram and a vanity-renouncingquatrainof his own composition.The document in question servesmerelyas "whitespace,"a kind of balloon inwhich a captionmaybe presented to the vieweralongwiththe other artisticele-ments. Laterappearancesof records,however,were more subtle,as books anddocuments associated with the sitter'sprofessionwere used to providecontextand background.Colonialministers, or example,wereoften depictedsittingintheirlibraries,withtheir booksarrayedbehind them.Sometimes,spinetitleswerelegible,identifyingeditionsof the Bible,worksof theology,or otherclerical toolsof the trade. Even when titles were not visible, the books were recognizableenough to be understood in context. Sometimes, too, these libraryshelvescontained several of the small,hand-sewnmanuscriptvolumes in which minis-ters wrote out their sermonsand which they carriedinto the pulpitwith them.In the same way,a lawyermight be depicted in front of shelvesfull of statutebooksor a merchant with a run of oversizedledgersfor keeping his accounts.7More interesting are those portraits in which very specific books orrecords,identifiedin a particularwaywiththe sitter,aredepicted. In such cases,the document is not a generic prop, but rathera veryfocused one, servingtoreinforce other elements of the painting in conveying the subject'scharacteror accomplishments. A good example is the Gilbert Stuartportraitof JosiahQuincy. (Illus. #4) Stuart (1755-1828) was a British-trainedportraitistwhospecializedin renderingsof the politicaland social leadersof the newAmerican

7The self-portraitof Captain Thomas Smith is in the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts.For some European examples of this style, see Eric Ketelaar, "The Archival Image," in Ketelaar, TheArchivalImage:CollectedEssays(Hilversum, Netherlands: Verloren, 1997), 115-18. There is an interest-ing discussion of ministerial portraits and the libraries depicted in them in KevinJ. Hayes, "Portraitsof the Mind: Ebenezer Devotion and EzraStiles,"NewEngland Quarterly0 (December 1997): 616-30.

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republic. His most famous image is probablythat of George Washington, anunfinishedportrait rom 1796 which makesWashingtonappearto be emerging,godlike, from the clouds and which once graced countless elementaryschoolclassrooms.Josiah Quincy (1772-1864) was by far a lesser figure, serving asmayorof Boston from 1823 to 1828before going on to a fifteen-year enure aspresident of HarvardCollege. Known locally as "the Great Mayor,"Quincyhelped remake the face of the old colonial town,tappingthe wealthof the city'smerchant classto construct new publicbuildingsand to reclaim land from theharbor for civic improvements. His most enduring physical legacy was theconstructionalongthe city'swaterfrontof threelong marketbuildingswhichstillstand.The middle of the three became known almost immediatelyas QuincyMarket,and it has been in constant commercialuse fromitscompletion in 1826until itsreemergencein the 1970s asa gentrified,open-airshopping mall.8Stuart'sportraitof the red-hairedmayorshows him in a fanciful setting,posed in front of a substantial pillar with the main entrance of the marketbuilding, designed along classicalGreeklines, in the backgroundoff Quincy'sleft shoulder. On the table in front of him, the mayoris unrolling an architec-turaldrawingof the marketproject,showingsectionsof the threebuildings.Themain structure, n the center, is open and undividedon the inside, savefor itscentralrotunda,whilethe northandsouthmarketbuildingsaresubdivided ntoa successionof stalls,used for individual radesmenand warehousespace;thesesubdivisionsare clearly apparenton the drawing,as are some numbers,appar-ently ndicatingmeasureddimensions.The documentmayor maynot havebeena real one: architecturalplans were far less detailed in the early nineteenthcenturythan they are today,with only the most rudimentaryof sketches thensufficingto givebuildersan idea of whattheywere to erect.Moreimportantforour purposes,this document connects the subjectof the portraitto his monu-ment in stone,whichis alsoevidentin the image.Itis averyspecifickind of prop.Statutebooksor other documents would havebeen sufficient to characterizeapolitician in a general sense, but here an identifiablekind of record is used todraw he portrait ogetherand to memorializeMayorQuincyashe himselfprob-ablywantedto be remembered.The document servesas a link betweenhim andthe most visibleaccomplishment of his administration, an accomplishmentwhich his fellow citizenswouldhaveimmediatelyrecognized.9Sir Thomas Lawrence's (1769-1830) portraitof RobertJenkinson, 2ndEarlof Liverpool,depicts a grandee, patron, and politicianwho is confident,8On Quincy and his market, see Lawrence W. Kennedy, Planning theCity Upona Hill: BostonSince1630(Amherst:Universityof MassachusettsPress, 1992), 48-50, and Thomas H. O'Connor, Bibles,Brahmins,and Bosses:A ShortHistoryof Boston,2d ed. (Boston: Boston Public Library, 1984), 77-82. On Stuart,

archivists might be particularly interested in Charles Merrill Mount, Gilbert tuart:A Biography NewYork:Norton, 1964) , but they should also consult Theresa Galvin,"The Boston Case of Charles MerrillMount: The Archivist'sArch Enemy,"AmericanArchivist 3 (Summer 1990): 442-50.9The original portrait is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. For a discussion of some of the issuesinvolved in the changing nature of architectural records, see the special issue of the AmericanArchivist(59 [Spring 1996]) devoted to them.

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stylishand powerful.(Mus.#5) LiverpoolwasPrime Minister rom 1812to 1827and, until the election of Tony Blairin 1998, the youngest person to hold theposition. The full-length portraitis larger-than-lifeand was meant to be hungin a prominent public place.Lawrence'sconception is, however,verysparewithonly a few props supportingthe subject. Liverpoolholds a pairof glovesin hisright hand. His left hand is placed on top of a large rolled parchment docu-ment tied in red treasury ape. Artistsoften relied on props, such as letters orbooks or walkingsticks,to occupy the subject'shands as a popularresponse tothe question, "What hould I do with my hands?"These were not easyto rep-resent withoutsuggestingsome activity or them.In this instance, however,both the gloves and the document have othermeaningsand were carefullychosen for this subject.Gloves,symbolsof gentle-manlystaturesince the Renaissance,are a clear reference to Liverpool'sstatusand breeding.The document, inscribedNationalGallery, ewRoyal] acafdemy]restsbeside an open dispatch box. Both are placed on a crimson cloth- theLatinwordfor this colorbeing the root for "bureau"n bureaucracy.The docu-ment tiesLiverpool o the founding of the NationalGallery.He was, n actuality,one of the prime moversfor the project and his effortswere important to itssuccess.The document drawsour attention to the sitter'saccomplishment inthe context in which it took place. However, it was not a real instrument,although it has the aspect of a parchment charter.Lawrence'sprops combinethe notion of foundation, representedby the charter,with thatof governmentaction,representedbythe dispatchbox for documents, to conveythe source ofthe nationalcollection of artand a place for it to hang for publicviewing.Theprops summarizea series of administrativeactionswhich together establishedthe Gallery,an importantevent and institutionfor artistand subject.10Another example of archivaland librarymaterials used as identifiableremindersof the sitter'soccupationand careercomes from a much laterpaint-ing: the 1962 portrait of T. S. Eliot by Sir Gerald Kelly,which hangs in theNational PortraitGalleryin Washington, D.C. (Illus.#6) The painting showsEliot in the libraryof his London apartment,slightlyannoyed at havingbeeninterruptedin the middle of a game of solitaire.The cardsare arrayedon thetable in front of him, but the viewer'seye is also drawnto the shelves of booksbehind the poet. This is no vague depiction of a library,showingunidentifiedbooks merelyto create texture and the suggestion that the sitterwasa literaryman. Rather, it seems to be an accurate rendering of the books that wereactually n place as the portraitwasdone. Numerous titles are legible, and theclose observereven gets a hint of how Eliot shelved them: all the travelbooksare clusteredtogether, for instance.10NPG#1804 wascommissioned by Robert Peel, the Home Secretary n Liverpool's Cabinet. The Gallerywas established by a Treasury Minute of 23 March 1824. The money to purchase the core collectionfor the new gallerywasvoted as part of the Civilestablishment vote in April 1824. See Robert Walker,Regency ortraits London: National PortraitGallery, 1988) , 319.

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ILLUSTRATION 5. Sir Thomas Lawrence, RobertJenkinson,2nd Earlof LiverpoolCourtesy of theNational Portrait Gallery,London.

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ILLUSTRATION 6. Sir Gerald Kelly, T.S.Eliot.Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery,Washington, D.C.

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Severalbooks, however,more directly pertinent to Eliotand his work,arealso clearlyvisible, particularlyhis multivolume edition of the OxfordEnglishDictionary,eadily dentifiablebythe readablespine titles.Boundin theiroriginalbrownbuckram, hevolumesarelinedup immediatelybehindEliot,withinreadyreach if he turned around in his chair. Moreover, the volumes of this grandcompilation of the English language- to which Eliot no doubt had regularrecourse appearon the shelvesexactlyas theywere in life. The viewer can seefrom the alphabeticalsubdivisionson the spines that they are in proper order.The firstvolume (A-B) occupiesaspaceat the end ofone shelf,immediatelyoverEliot's eftshoulder; he set then continueson the nextshelf,over thepoet's rightshoulder,with three volumes (C,D-E, andF-G) visiblebefore the rest of the setdisappearsbehind his back. This is exactlyhow one shelvesbooks,keeping a settogether and in order, even while accommodating it to the other books onone's shelves.As such, the portraitshows an actualworkinglibrary,a faithfulrepresentationof whatthe artist sawas he filled in the backgroundbehind theprincipalobjectof his attention. Whatbetterwayto present Eliot than to showhim surrounded by the elements of the language of which he was a modernmaster?Anybooksmightwellhave servedaspropshere, but bythe depiction ofthese particularbooks, the artist s able to underline the characterand perhapseven the personalityof the subjectof the painting.Documents may not alwaysbe readable in art because text is difficult toreproduce legibly in paint. More importantlyperhaps, artistsclearlydid notalwaysntend that the documents depicted should be read.A painting, in fact,mayonly suggesta document, writingor reading.Textualitywassimulatedbyformat and color. By the eighteenth centurywell-developedwritten cultureshad takenroot in law,business,and privatecommunication.Eachone favoreddifferent colors for paper and used distinct document types and formatsindentures,ledgers,and lettersbeing the most obvious.These weresufficientlywell knownthattheycould be used assymbolsfor occupationsand the charac-teristics associated with them. The profusion of documentary types gave askilled artista large symbolicshorthandfor conveyingabstractconcepts suchas politicalsuccessor statecraft,businessachievement,and social position.SirThomas Lawrence'sportraitof the Baring'sBankpartnersis unusualfor itsdocumentarydetail.11Illus.#7)FrancisBaring,M. P. and founder of thefamily ortunes,appearson the left, hand cupping his ear and head oriented tocatcha sound. The pose wascharacteristicof Baring he wasprofoundlydeaf.Joseph Farington's diaryrecords that considerable comment was generatedby Lawrence'scandid depiction. Seated across the table from Baring are hispartners,his brother Thomas and his son-in-law,CharlesWall.All three part-ners are united asjoint subjectsby a large open ledger on the table which is11The painting was commissioned by Francis Baring and done in the autumn of 1806. See MichaelLevey, Sir ThomasLawrenceLondon: National PortraitGallery, 1979) , 47-48. Also see Basil S.Yamey,Art andAccounting New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989).

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ILLUSTRATION 7. Sir Thomas Lawrence, Baring'sBank Partners.Private collection.

identified as a record of the Hope Bank, an Amsterdam enterprise whichlaunched the Baring fortunes in finance. Although the volume is renderedsketchily, it is unmistakable as a mercantile ledger. The focus on a book ofaccount was also controversial at the time.12Men of recent fortune, it seemed,could be uncomfortable withportraitswhich placed them amid the mundanemeans of their success. By contrast, in another portrait, Francis's brother,Sir Thomas Baring,the third Baronet, is depicted in the libraryof his countryhome almosttotallyenveloped in a welter of documents, boxes and standishes.(Mus. #8) No one item can be identified but all arerecognizable as types.Theartist,John Linnell (1792-1882), chose to present Sir Thomas surrounded bythe deeds and maps of a landed estate ratherthan the ledgers of a merchant.The placementand the propsestablishBaring's tatusas agentlemanof property.So long as books and documents remainsimply backgroundor subsidiaryobjects, however, they have only limited use and interest. More telling arethose works of art in which these items move to the center of our attention.Depictionsof the actsof readingand writingareespecially noteworthy.Bycon-sidering such images, it is also possible to move beyond the world of portraits,a world accessiblemainlyto those economic, social,and politicalelites withtheresources and the self-possessionto commission them.An examination of read-12TheDiary ofJosephFarington,Kenneth Garlick, Angus Macintyre, Kathryn Cave, eds. 16 vols. (NewHaven, Conn.: Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in BritishArtbyYaleUniversityPress,1978-1984), 8:3040-41 (entry for Friday8 May1807) and 9:3401 (entry for Friday17 February1809).

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ILLUSTRATION 8. John Linnell, Sir ThomasBaring. Courtesy of Archives, ING Barings.

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ing andwritingin the scenes of genre paintingpermitsus not only to see theserecords-related ctivitiesassuch,but also to broadenourvisionof who and whatis represented in art. Consider,for example, the painting entitled TheLord sMy Shepherdby astmanJohnson (1824-1906). (Illus.#9) One of severalpaint-ingsJohnson made of slaves and recently freed slaves,this small canvasfrom1863 maywell be the firstrepresentationof an AfricanAmericanin the act ofreading.The immediate context of the paintingwould have been understoodby those who viewedit at the time it wasexecuted. Contemporariesknew thatit had been illegalto teachslaves o readin most southernstatesbefore the CivilWar.Whatever nterestpious mastersmayhavehad in teachingtheirslaveshowto read so they could studythe Bible wasalwaysmore than outweighed by thefear that slaves,once literate,might also read all kinds of other things, includ-ing abolitionisttracts.Onlywithemancipation,formallyproclaimedin the veryyearofJohnson's work,could slaves egitimatelyacquireliteracy.The paintingthuspresented to contemporariesa scene thatwasnew and unusual.13The readingman in TheLardsMyShepherds not identifiedor named.Thevery actthat the paintinghas anallegoricalratherthandescriptive itleindicatesthat this is not a particularperson whom Johnson wants to portray.Rather,this reader is a generic figure, and that indeterminacy is reinforced by theshadowswhichobscurethe detailsof his face. He sitsin ahomelycabin,readingintentlyfroma smallbut thickbook.The painting'stide invitesus to inferthatitis a Bible,and the readeris lost in contemplationor prayer.Too literalan inter-pretationof the tide, however,maynot be supportable.The well-knownphraseis the opening line of the 23rd psalm, and the Book of Psalmsoccurs abouthalfway hrough the HebrewBible.Yet this readerhas his book open to one ofthe veryfirstpages:we can see the thicknessof the book on the right-handside,representingthe textstillto come if one is readinga book straight hroughfromstart o finish.If it is a Biblethisman is reading,he is in Genesis,not Psalms.It ispossible,of course, that the volume is a psalmbook only (in which case place-ment toward he beginning of the volume makesmore sense), though a formerslavewithaccessto onlya fewbookswouldprobablyhavesoughtout a completeBibleratherthan ust a portionof it. In anycase,too closean analysisof the bookwasprobablybeyondJohnson's intention. He focuses instead on the intensitywithwhichhissubject sreading,seekingthe consolationsof religionin theworldof troublewhichslavesand ex-slavesknew withspecialintensity.1413On efforts, not alwayseffective, to suppress slave literacy, see Janet D. Cornelius, "When CanReadMyTitleClear": iteracy, lavery, ndReligion n theAntebellumouth(Columbia: Universityof South CarolinaPress, 1991), and AlbertJ. Raboteau, SlaveReligion:The'Invisiblenstitution' n theAntebellum outh(NewYork:Oxford UniversityPress, 1978), 239-43. For a general discussion ofJohnson, see Albert Boime,

The Art of Exclusion:RepresentingBlacks in the NineteenthCentury(Washington, D.C: SmithsonianInstitution Press, 1990), 107-20.14The Lord is My Shepherds in the collections of the National Museum of American Art of theSmithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. It is similar to another Johnson painting entitled The

ChimneyCorneralso 1863), which is in the Munson-Williams-ProctorInstitute, Utica, New York.

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illustration 9. Eastmanohnson,TheLardsMyShepherd.ourtesy f NationalMuseum fAmericanArt,Smithsoniannstitution,Giftof FrancesP. Garvan.

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Paintingswhichdepict the act of writingare also worthnoting.To besure,virtually ny portrait ubjectcould be presentedwithpen in hand.Ineighteenth-andnineteenth-centuryritainandAmerica,anyonesufficientlywell off to commission portraitwasalmostcertainlyiterate,andthus a writ-ing tool wouldneverbe out of place.A famousportraitofJohn HancockbyJohn SingletonCopley, orinstance, howsus not Hancock he politicianbutHancock hemerchant,withan enormousedgerbookproppedupin frontofhim and theyoungmanactually eepinghis accounts.Likereading,however,writing s perhapsbest represented n genre painting,as in TheLetter f1890-1891byMaryCassatt 1844-1926). (Illus.#10)Cassatt roducedmanypaintings f readers ndwriters,mostof themwomen.Thisone showsayoungwomann a blueprintdress, ittingatahighdeskwith tswriting urfaceoldeddownoverherlap.A lonesheetofpaper ieson it,andthesubject eemstobelookingdownatit as shelicksanenvelopeclosed.Nowritingsvisibleon eitherthepaperor theenvelope;nopenorpencil sapparent; orhasthewomanyetput a stampon the envelope.At firstsight,the compositionof the paintingseemswrong. f thepaperon the table s the letterof the title,thenthewriterismistakenlyealing heenvelopebeforeenclosingwhatshehaswritten.Onasecondlook,however,we realizethatCassatthascaptured he multilayeredprocessof recordcreation.Thesheetof paperon thedesk s anincoming et-ter,which hewriterhas ustanswered.Havingwrittenherresponse, heis nowsealing t in theenvelopebeforesending t on itsway.Wegetno clueasto theidentity f thiswoman's orrespondent orof thesubject f their nterchange,butwearecatching heprocessofcorrespondencen theverymiddle.By nfer-enceandsuggestion ather hanbydirectdepiction,weareplaced n themidstofthecompletelyecognizableat east n the1890s,f lesssoin thepresentageof telephonesande-mail)actof letterwriting.15Anartist'sdesireto portray subject n meaningful urroundings ndasitter'swishto commemorate neventorachievement ouldcoincidein theselectionof real offices, studies,and props.Their detailmayadd a visualdimensionorecordswhicharenowkeptoutof theiroriginalphysical ontext.Groupportraits,nparticular,onsistentlyivereliableaccess ocontemporaryworkingpracticesandmethods.Thisprivileged ntreebecomes ncreasinglyimportanthefurtherwearefromthetimeandplaceof thework.LowesCatoDickinson's 1819-1908)renderingof Gladstone's abinetmeetingin May1868(Illus.#11) s one example romthemanydepictionsofpoliticalgroups,clubs,anddiplomaticonventions. ickinson ivesaprominent lace owritingandrecords,whichseemquiteathome in theworking cenehe depicts.Hiscarewithsettingshowsministersof statedoing the Queen'sbusiness,butequally he portraithighlightsdocumentsasthe alliesof men of affairs.15The standard biography of Cassattis Nancy Hale, MaryCassatt Garden City, New York:Doubleday,1975) . The handsome writing desk was a real one, owned by the artist and presented to the Museumof Fine Arts, Boston, by the Cassattfamily in 1997.

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ILLUSTRATION 10. MaryCassatt, TheLetter.Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Giftof PaulJ. Sachs, 1916.

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ILLUSTRATION II. Lowes Cato Dickinson, Gladstone's Cabinet of 1868. Courtesy of the NationalPortrait Gallery, London.

WilliamOrpen's (1878-1931) engaging portraitof DavidLloyd George,British Prime Ministerand World WarI leader, depicts him posed pensivelyathis desk, perhaps during a reflectivepause in the course of dealing with busi-ness pressed in the varioustypesof documents strewn about. (Mus. #12)In factOrpen suggeststhe place, an office or study perhaps,and the moment, perhapsLloyd Georgeatwork,by posing the subjectat a desk and among paperswhichare only suggested in likeness. Our eye is drawn to the man but also to theprops,particularlyhe rigidmetalspike,or "file,"on the desk to Lloyd George'sright."Files" sed to becommon objectsin officesespeciallyto hold completedpapers, drafts,or notes. No one document is fully developed in Orpen's por-trait,yet the scene is nonetheless set, the activitiessuggested, and the meansunmistakable.This portraitand our reading of it demonstrates, more clearlythan anyother, the role of the viewerin establishing meaning.In the hand of the most skilledartists,propscould be powerful metaphors.Hans Holbein's group portraitof HenryVIII and the BarberSurgeons domi-nates the main hall of the BarberSurgeons Companywhere it has hung sinceit waspainted around 1540. (Illus. #13)The painting is not about persons or ahistorical event, although each is named. Rather it is about power and itssource whence it emanates and how it is exercised in society. HenryVIII,infull regalia,wields the sword of state in his righthand. He hands the Masterofthe Company,Thomas Vicary,a document which appears to be a charter.Inactualityno charter was issuedby Henryto the BarberSurgeons.However,one

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ILLUSTRATION 12. Sir William Orpen, David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George. Courtesy of theNational Portrait Gallery, London.

wasgranted by Edward IVin 1462 to incorporate the Companyof Barbers,apredecessorof the BarberSurgeons. In 1540, the yearof this commission, theCompanyof Barbersand the Guild of Surgeonswereunited, not bycharter butbyAct of Parliament.The artist'simage shows the source of union in an officeand in a document.Holbein's portraitsubordinatesindividual human character to the impor-tance of the moment and the majestyof the state.The result is a pictureof greatimpactwhich glorifies the Tudor monarchy.The document in Henry'shand,like the sword of state,represents powerand its manner of working n the worldfrom the sovereignto the subject.Holbein's portraitand itsprops giveconcreteexpression to abstractconcepts of sovereignty, privilege,and power.Even more interesting are those works of artin which records and docu-ments are more than mere props and assume an even more centralposition,becoming in effect characters n the work.A master ataccomplishingthis effect

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ILLUSTRATION. Hans Holbein, HenryVIIIand the BarberSurgeons.Courtesy of the WorshipfulCompany of Barber Surgeons.wasFrancisWilliamEdmonds (1806-1863), a self-taughtAmericanpainterwhoinherited some of the traditions of the Hudson River School. Edmonds wasneverquiteable to make alivingat his art,insteadpursuinga career as a bankerand a member of the boards of directors of several railroads.This connectionto the world of affairs accustomed him to the uses of documents in humantransactions,and he often incorporated them into his artistic work. His 1852TheSpeculator,or instance, shows a real estate sharpy displayinga land devel-opment prospectus to an unsophisticated farmer and his wife, urging theirinvestment on the promise that the railroad'scoming throughwill increase thevalue of theirholdings. (Illus.#14)The salesmandisplaysa long sheet of paper,resembling a galley proof, which clearlyshows the proposed rail line and thehouselots subdividedalong it. Edmonds would have known that thisscene wasrepeated countlesstimes,as often as not to the advantageof the speculatorandthe sorrow of the unsuspecting rubes.16Edmonds'sTakingheCensus1854) presentsan even livelierand ultimatelyricher scene in which manuscriptsand books are central. (Illus.#75)The artisthas brought us into the main room of a farm house that is modest but withsome signs of respectability:there is a handsome clock on the mantle, forinstance, and books here and there in the room. A census taker stands on therightside, writingdown some informationin the book he holds. Next to him is16The Speculator,also known as The Real EstateAgent, is in the National Museum of American Art,Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. For a discussion of it, see Maybelle Mann, Francis WilliamEdmonds(Washington, D.C: International Exhibitions Foundation, 1975), 44, and H. Nichols B. Clark,FrancisW.Edmonds:AmericanMaster n theDutch Tradition(Washington, D.C: Smithsonian InstitutionPress, 1988), 100-2.

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ILLUSTRATION 14. Francis William Edmonds, TheSpeculator. ourtesyof the National Museumof American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Ruth C. and Kevin McCann in affectionate memory ofDwight David Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States.

hisyoungassistant, arrying nothermanuscript olumeunder his arm andholdingupaninkwellwitha secondquillpenin it,readywheneverhe censustakerneedsit as he records he information e isgathering.On the othersideof thefireplace tandsafarmer,n frontof hiswife,whoholdsan infanton herlap; heother children n thefamilyare clusteredbehind theirmotheron theleft,observinghe entirescene. One of the children,a boy,hashisforefingerto his lips,makinga sly shushing,the meaningof which is not immediatelyobvious.The farmer scountingsomethingout on hisfingers,apparentlynu-meratinga portionof hispropertyn response o a question romthe censustaker.Edmondshascaptureda precisemoment of recordmaking indeed,themakingof a recordwithwhichanyonewhohas used a manuscriptensusschedulewillbe familiar.17In fact, Edmonds has done more than that, portrayingnot just anymomentof recordscreationbutrather he creationof averyspecificrecord:17Taking heCensus,which is privatelyowned, is currently on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art,New York. The painting is discussed in Clark,Francis W.Edmonds,107-9.

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ILLUSTRATION 15. Francis William Edmonds, Taking he Census.Courtesyof the MetropolitanMuseum of Art, Lent by Diane Wolf, Daniel Wolf, and Mathew Wolf.

the federalcensusof 1850.Ineffect,thispainting s a portraitof that census.The Constitutionhad mandated hat a populationcountbe takenevery enyears,primarilyor thepurposeof apportioning epresentationn Congress.Over ime,however,he informationgatheredbythe censusgrew o includeallkindsof data aboutthe Americanpeople.The count of 1850wasnotableat the time for its detail andcompleteness,and the information t collectedhasbeen useful to historians ver since. It was n 1850,forexample,thatthemost detailedenumerationever was made of the slavepopulation.Becausecensus takers that yearwere seeking so much information,manycitizensfound it intrusive, nd for the first ime therewaswidespreadesistanceo thecensusand countlessexamplesof poor compliance.Somepeoplewere eeryof tellingthe governmentoo much,fearfulof increased axation:f respon-dentsadmitted ullyto how muchpropertyheyheld, the informationmightworkagainstthem when the tax man followedthe census taker.This fearapparentlyxplains hegestureof the soninEdmonds's ainting, ncouraginghis father okeepsilentaboutsome of thefamily'sproperty,whichthe farmeriscountingon hisfingers.Whilewhatwe arewitnessingere s aportrayalf therecord-makingrocess,tmayalsoshow heoriginsof a newconcern orprivacy,adeliberatewithholdingf informationrom hose(even,orperhaps specially,thegovernment)whom hesubjectseel shouldnot have t.Allthisbackground

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would have been familiar to contemporaries who saw Edmonds's work;theywould haveknown,from readingthe newspapers f not from actuallyresistingthe censusthemselves,that this scene had been replicatedthousandsof timesinthe recent past. For them, the painting thus had a topicality that is moreobscure to us. By reconstructingthe storyaround it, we can recognize a clearinstance in which records are critical to the composition and meaning of apainting.18We can also see how fully documents had entered public con-sciousness,accepted here as entirelyfamiliar.

Perhapsthe best example of the centralityof documents in an Americanpainting is theJohn Singleton Copley portraitof SamuelAdams (1722-1803),a workcompleted about 1772. (Illus.#16)Adamsis often misremembered byhistoryas a fieryrabble-rouser,but he wasin fact an extraordinarilyconserva-tiverevolutionary.He looked not to a brave new politicaland socialworld,butrather to a restorationof earlier times in which, he thought, civicvirtue hadflourished. Copley'sportraitshows him in this seemingly contradictory light.It represents him in the midst of a specific and very well known incident,almost as a snapshot or news photograph might have done a century later. Itis March6, 1770, the day after the Boston Massacre, n which Britishsoldiershad fired into an unruly crowd,killing five. The incident served as the flash-point for growingopposition to the colonial government, and a hastilycalledtown meeting demanded that the troops be withdrawnimmediately.Adamsand fourteen other leading citizenswere authorizedto present thisdemand tothe governor,the haplessThomasHutchinson, and it is thisconfrontationthatwe see represented in Copley'sportrait.In fact, the vieweressentiallyassumesthe role of GovernorHutchinson, face to face with his longtime antagonist.19The scene is avividone. Adams s so tense thatwe can see the bulgingveinsin his hands. He standsin a darkened room, the light coming from the left toilluminatehim, one fistclenched and the other hand dramaticallypointing, hisunblinkingeyesstaringstraightatus. The onlyother thingsvisiblein the paint-ing are documents. In his tightened right hand, he holds a rolled up sheaf ofpapers, and these, we can see, are identified as "Instructionsof the Town ofBoston,"the officialprotestwhich it is his dutyto present.The identificationiswrittenacrossthe top of the outside sheet,just as legal documents were some-timeslabeledbefore folding and placement in uprightfiles.The fistrestson anopen, manuscriptbook. Itswriting s not legible, but it is intended to representthejournal of the colony's House of Representatives,another locus of opposi-18On the sometimes controversial history of the census, see MargoJ. Anderson, TheAmericanCensus:ASocialHistory New Haven:YaleUniversityPress, 1988) , and several of the essaysin WilliamAlonso andPaul Starr,eds., ThePoliticsofNumbersNew York:Russell Sage Foundation, 1987).19The most recent popular biography of Adams is William M. Fowler,Jr., SamuelAdams:RadicalPuritan(Reading, Massachusetts:Addison WesleyLongman, 1997), which goes part of the waytowardundoingthe earlier view of Adams as simply a radical propagandist. See also Pauline Maier, "Coming to Termswith SamuelAdams,"AmericanHistoricalReview 1 (February1976): 12-37, andJames M. OToole, "TheHistoricalInterpretationsof Samuel Adams,"NewEnglandQuarterly9 (March 1976): 82-96.

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The American Archivjst

tion to the royaladministration.Mostimportantis the large document spreadout on the table to which Adamsis sternly pointing with his left hand. It is thecolony'scharter,complete with the largewaxseal,granted by KingWilliamandQueen Mary n 1693. As the foundation of the colony's governmentand of itscitizens'"rightsof Englishmen" the phrasewouldgrow increasinglycommonas the Revolutionneared itwas the ultimateauthorityto which the aggrievedcould appeal.20The three documents, each with a distinct meaning and sig-nificance, are everybit as much charactersin the painting as Adams himself.They specify the incident portrayed,but they also explain Adams's politicalphilosophy. "Here, in these documents,"Adams seems to be saying, "isthefoundation for ourposition,the basis or ourdemandthat the oppressive oldiersbe removed."SamuelAdamspaintedwithoutthese documentswouldsimplynotbe the sameperson. The documents have become entirely integralto the workof art,and the viewer'sattention is called to them no less than to the man whopointsat them. This isperhapsasclose asanyAmericanpaintinghasevercometo presenting an actualportraitof documents.

ConclusionWhatdoes the studyof archives n artgiveus thatis usefulbeyondpersonal

enjoyment?Artistsand archivistsmaysharean interestin the concept of repre-sentationbut thiscommon groundis narrowcomparedto the differenceswhichseparate hem.Eachfocuseson a differenttypeof realityandusesquitedifferenttechniquesto represent t.Archivistsdealwith"information bjects,"andlargelywiththose thatarecontinuouslyproducedbyfunctionsand activitiesn everydaylife. They representrecordsby description,which is expressedin text and con-trolledbystandards.The portraitartist,bycontrast, ocuseson a human subjectand aunique life.Artists'anguageand grammar svisual,and theirargumentif thattermcanbe used for the meaning of artwork- is largelyaesthetic.In fact,artistsmakeconscioususe of symbolsor othervisualkeysto conveymanymean-ings which can emerge from the portrait n layers from the obviousreality tdepictsto thatwhichisonlyaccessible hroughiconsorsymbols.21rtistsmaysug-gestbyallusion,whilearchivists imto be asexplicitaspossible.Thereisno room20This painting, which is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is analyzed in Carrie Rebora, et al., /o/mSingletonCopleyn America NewYork:Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995), 275-78. The Massachusettscharter has had an interesting recent history. Long on display in the museum of the State House inBoston, the firstpage and the seal were stolen in 1984 in a daring daylightrobbery.The page wasrecov-ered a few months later, and the seal was returned in 1997, long after most local archivistshad givenit up for permanently lost.21Symbols in art comprise an international language. A good introduction to symbols relevant toarchivists is provided by the following essays in Helen E. Roberts, d., Encyclopaedia f ComparativeIconography:ThemesDepicted n Worksof Art (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1998): "Logos/word" 1:525-27; "Labor/ trades/occupation" 1: 477-82; "Money" 2: 617-21; "Reading" 2: 767-70; and"Vanity/vanitas"2: 883-89.

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These differences between artist and archivistare significant.Evenso, thecontrast in their objects, language, and methods has the potential to revealplaceswe have never seen and notionswe mayoverlook or discount. The totalityof context is complex and rarelycompletely transparentto us. Place and timeare a large part of the context for records. These are elusive once they havepassedaway,and theyare difficultto recall through texts. Portraitscan help usconceptualizethe settingsfor readingand writingand show,for example, howdocumentarypracticeswere wovenwith a physicalplace. They do thisuniquelyanytime and are,in addition,our onlyvisualsourcebefore the invention of thecamera.Visual artistshave a unique powerto transcendthe apparentlyneutralpersonaof documentsas modesof communicationand meansof administration.They can imbue them with overtones of power, civicachievement, and socialposition.Portraitrepresentationsof documentarypracticesoftenhaveimbeddedin them symbols or ideas and metaphorsand for concepts thatmatteredto theartist,the sitter,and their society.Archivistshavea dual personality.On the one hand they are cognizant ofthe utilitarianrole of recordsin administrationand the law.Fromthis perspec-tivetheyviewthe meaning of documents aslargelyfixed by explicitprocedure,albeitprocedure in a context. On the other hand, they are sensitiveto the his-torical changes in records and the contingent circumstances in which theythrived. From this perspective archivistsare uneasy about notions of fixedmeaningsandwelcome the changing insightsof historicallybased scholarship.This side of the archivist'spersonalityseeks to reestablish the many layersofcontext, emphasizing the impact on records of ideas abroadin societywhichare frequently not explicit, either in the documents or in their immediatesource. The tensions between these viewsare real,but they are not necessarilyirreconcilable;nor are archivistsreallythe professional schizophrenics thesedifferentinterestssuggest.Both types of interest seem to be less in conflict when the archivist'sknowledgeis deployed in another discourse.Ourbriefexcursioninto portraitsand genre paintings, seeking to understand the role of documents in them,demonstrateshow bridges can be built between these apparentlycontendingversions of archives.While we could argue that the license of the artistcom-promises the literal truth of documents in portraits,we maintain instead thattheir use as symbolsand metaphors givesus access to ideas about documentsthat maynot be as clearlytransmittedby plain text alone. The portraitartist'sintegrationof people, setting,and ideasmay help us to graspbetter the culturalcontext of information artifacts,contributing, on a basic level, to ourjob ofkeeping archivesthrough the description,or representation,of legacyrecordsand recordssystems.Everybit of informationabout the contemporarysettingsfor documents and writingalso enriches the archivist'sand user's experienceof historicaldocuments today.Enrichment,we argue, is sufficient ustificationfor exploring art;that it also can be practicalis a bonus.