“The Subject in Art is a challenging book, and sometimes while reading it, it seems easy to get lost in the details, but the main points are rewarding, and they present in total an important addition to the modern theory of the subject. The book is a valuable read. . . .” — Brian E. Butler, Consciousness Literature and the Arts
“[B]y tracing the genealogy of a way of seeing and a means of comprehending art, this is a valuable contribution to both art history and the history of Judaism. For writers on art, this book re-emphasises the importance of portraiture. For those who work on Jewish life and thought, it stresses the ways in which paintings were used to express identity. Resting on real research and deep thought, The Subject in Art forces us to look again at some familiar images and to think again about the ways in which we approach them. For that, it is sincerely to be welcomed.” — William Whyte, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies
“It is immensely satisfying to read a book about portraits which attempts to treat them with the gravity warranted by the sheer volume and intensity of their production in European art practice. Soussloff’s exploration of portraits in various media—her examples are drawn from painting, caricature and photography—does help to illuminate her field and argument.” — Lara Perry, The ArtBook
“Soussloff's theoretical approach is genealogical, and the scholarly task she sets for herself is both important and demanding.” — Katerina Reed-Tsocha, British Journal of Aesthetics,
“Catherine M. Soussloff has managed, in her philosophical and art historical reflections on the portrait in modernity, to bring important insights to our understanding of the relation between the individual and history. The ‘individual’ is the great enigma of modernist history. In focusing on the ‘subject’ in the individual as revealed and hidden in modern portraiture, Soussloff exposes many of the open secrets of modernist historical consciousness as well.” — Hayden White, Presidential Professor of Historical Studies, Emeritus, University of California and Professor of Comparative Literature, Stanford University