Between styles, techniques and iconographies

Ever since the magazine medium was segmented into male and female audiences, we have seen editorial formulas adapted to specific contexts and languages. In the 21st century, for example, we will find the titles Alfa and Lola Magazine, showing us a predominant iconography on their covers that reminds us of the appropriation of the bust portrait as a characteristic language of this style of magazine. Based on the assumption that the head is a kind of mediator between artistic techniques and styles, involved in forms and processes of representing the human figure, we will base ourselves on a study from Egyptian funerary art, through the Renaissance in the 15th century, the invention of photography and the intensification of industrial production from the 20th to the 21st century, combined with an investigative intent on the adaptations of the language of the portrait and its perpetuation throughout history. If we consider the magazine cover as one of the genres of this language, we will find an aspect that considers it beyond the commercial portrait. Not just as a mere industrial artefact, the magazine cover becomes a space for readings and re-readings.