Transcripts for 'Validating portrait-sitting ontology requirements through interviews with art historians'

This activity is part of a wider project, entitled ‘Collecting and connecting portrait sittings: a re-evaluation of portrait-sitting accounts in enhancing knowledge and understanding of British portraiture 1900-1960’. 
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The portrait sitting is an interaction between artist and sitter, from which portraits are produced. Textual accounts of sittings give useful insight into the negotiations between participants and the circumstances of portrait production. Yet the accounts have limitations: they are constructed, conventional and often incomplete. My question is: How can digital methods be used to understand and represent the portrait-sitting - a historical event, known to us through evidence - as a useable research object for art historians? The purpose of my interviews is to define a useable research object for art historians: to validate my understanding of why portrait-sitting accounts are useful, what makes them useful and what limits their use. I do this by consulting domain experts: art historians, specifically historians of portraiture, who are the intended users of this material. The output is a portrait-sitting ontology: a theory of knowledge about the sitting and blueprint for modelling sittings as research objects.

本活动隶属于一项更宏大的研究项目，该项目题为《收集并关联肖像创作会面：重评肖像会面记录，以深化对1900-1960年英国肖像艺术的认知与理解》。

所谓肖像创作会面，是艺术家与模特之间的互动过程，肖像作品正是在此过程中诞生。关于此类会面的文字记录，能够为理解参与者之间的协商细节以及肖像创作的具体情境提供宝贵视角。然而这类记录亦存在局限：它们均为经过建构的、带有惯例性的文本，且往往并不完整。本研究的核心问题为：如何借助数字方法，将这一仅能通过史料得以认知的历史事件——肖像创作会面，转化为艺术史学家可使用的可靠研究对象？

本次访谈的目的，在于为艺术史学家界定这一可落地的研究对象：验证我对于肖像会面记录的价值来源、价值成因以及使用局限的理解。为此，我咨询了该领域的专家——肖像艺术史领域的艺术史学家，他们正是本研究材料的目标使用者。本研究的最终成果为一套肖像创作会面本体论（portrait-sitting ontology）：一套关于肖像会面的知识理论，以及将此类会面建模为研究对象的实施蓝图。