2. The Two-Dimensional Portraits in Context

Chapter two considers all Rimmer’s known portraits, which included two of his wife, and dated from 1841 to the early 1860s. He tended to experiment and appears to have been especially interested in effects of light and shadow that are suggestive of an immaterial identity. Indeed, he incorporated an identifiable musical score in his portrait of Eliza Kent as a means of conveying a sense of her non-physical self. As a trained physician, he included a frank acknowledgment of illness such as depression or deformity in some of his pictures. He lived through the Civil War, and his quick sketch from life or memory of an African American soldier, joining Abolitionist Robert Shaw in the famous march of the 54th Regiment from Boston, is related to allegorical war pictures. In other work, including sculpture, it is possible to see the effect of his bipolar illness.