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| Detail of the Empress Theodora mosaic from the church of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy |
Image is everything. Hate to break it to you, but whoever said “don’t judge a book by its cover” never had a job interview. We are making first impressions all the time, and nowadays with the prevalence of the internet it’s important to cultivate a clean public image if one wishes to promote oneself in the best light possible. Who you are on the inside matters too, but image is the thing people will judge first.
This isn't a new concept, though. Actually, constructed public images have existed for thousands of years. Roman emperors would disseminate portrait busts throughout the empire in order to show citizens of the Empire what their ruler looked like and remind everyone that they were under the leadership of a very important individual. Busts didn’t always physically resemble the rulers they were meant to be; portrait busts of Augustus, for example, showed him as eternally youthful even though he ruled until he was in his seventies. Other rulers preferred veristic portraits that emphasized their flaws and wrinkles since they believed those traits showed wisdom and experience. We think that people only started to alter their images when Photoshop came around, but to be truthful, people in the public eye have been manipulating their image in order to emphasize certain traits and leadership qualities for ages.
Another example of a public figure who fashioned their image to their advantage: Byzantine Emperor Justinian and his wife, Empress Theodora.
