Meaningfulness beyond Meaning-Making. Cultural Psychological Aspects of the Donor Portrait

Art is a rich area in which to study psychological life through the lens of cultural psychology. While any kind of art can be studied within cultural psychology, in the current piece we argue that an art form known as the donor portrait, and more particularly a subcategory thereof known as the contact portrait, visually depicts core aspects of our psychological lives that constitute matters of fundamental interest within cultural psychology. After briefly discussing this particular art form, we focus on how these portraits visually depict four core aspects of cultural psychology. We first explore how the contact portrait navigates the “frontier problem” found at the intersection of individuality and commonality. We then examine how contact portraits catalyze, but do not cause, the viewer’s emotional engagement. The third aspect concerns the human struggle to make sense out of an unknown future. Finally, we discuss the search for meaningfulness beyond meaning-making depicted within these images and lying at the core of our psychological lives. These characteristics of the contact portrait attest to our human striving towards what lies beyond our current state, something that finds expression in the idea of Schaufrömmigkeit—a pious, humble need to see that which is ultimately unseeable.