Between symbol and index. Notes on H.W. Diamond's psychiatric pictures

Abstract

This paper takes into examination the work of one of the pioneers of photographic portrait, the English psychiatrist H.W. Diamond, in the light of Sekula’s reflection on the role played by the physiognomic theory in shaping this photographic genre during the Victorian era, and resorting to Peirce’s classification of signs into indices, icons, and symbols. These conceptual tools help understanding the functioning of Diamond’s photographs as epistemic devices, while developing a wider analysis of the indexical, iconic and symbolic nature of photographic images and photographic archives.