Did we really think ‘selfies’ were a 21st century invention?
Of course not! People have been doing it for thousands of years.
Self-portraiture is a long established form of portrait art, dating from Ancient Egypt. Since then, many of the Old Masters, from Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Rembrandt, to Modern and Contemporary artists, Picasso and Francis Bacon, have reproduced their own image in a variety of media, for a variety of artistic, commercial and self-promotional motives.
I’ve compiled my favourite ‘selfies’ from Art History.
10. Bak
–Self Portrait with his wife Taheri, 1353-1336 BC
Archaeologists have found few remains of self-portraits completed during Antiquity; in Ancient Greek, Egyptian or Roman art. This is partly because only a small number of paintings have survived, and partly due to a lack of evidence concerning the individual artists involved. Sculpture, being more durable than wall or panel paintings, has survived in greater numbers. This self-portrait sculpted in stone dates from 1365 BC. It is believed to be by Bak, the head sculptor for the controversial Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten.
9. Albrecht Dürer
–Self Portrait, 1500
After Antiquity, self-portraits began to be more prolific during the Italian, and the Northern, Renaissance. Albrecht Dürer included himself in his paintings, sketches and etchings regularly with twelve currently in existence. This is the last of his three painted portraits, and is considered the most personal and complex, and therefore, has become iconic. The self-portrait is most remarkable because of its resemblance to many early representations of Christ. Art historians note the similarities with the conventions of religious painting, including its symmetry, dark tones and the manner in which the artist directly confronts the viewer. Dürer also raises his hands to the middle of his chest, as if in the act of blessing. The image could be responding to the tradition of the Imitation of Christ. Or it could be a proclamation of the artist’s supreme role as creator.
In its directness and confrontation with the viewer, the self-portrait is unlike any that came before. It is half-length, frontal and highly symmetrical; its lack of a conventional background seemingly presents Dürer in an abstract time or place.
8. Jenny Saville
-Branded, 1970
Jenny Saville reinvented the self-portrait. Her work shows women (often herself) in grotesque and distorted positions, breaking down the conventions of art history, and the traditional, idealised vision of women. The self-portrait is unrestricted, and refusing the boundaries meant to withhold women from exploring all parts of their self-identity. Here, Saville’s face is placed on top of her enlarged body overwhelming the space of the entire painting. She holds on to her stomach, highlighting the heaviness of her figure, rather than posing or lounging elegantly as was tradition.
7. Egon Schiele
-Self-Portrait, 1911
Like Saville, Schiele broke down the conventional norms of beauty, and strove to create a visual language to explore the psyche, and inner sexuality. His career was short, intense, and amazingly productive. Before succumbing to influenza in 1918 at the age of twenty-eight, he created over three hundred oil paintings, and several thousand works on paper.
The human figure provided Schiele with his most potent subject matter for both paintings and drawings, with his self-portraits being dramatic and psychologically complex images. The emaciated, tortured figure of the artist bristles with an inner tension made visible by the agitated pencil line, and the white surrounding area. Again we have an impression of the artist as Christ, or imitating Christ. His arm is thrust out awkwardly bringing visual references to the image of the Crucifixion.
I love this one too!
–Self-Portrait, 1918
6. Arshile Gorky
–Self-Portrait at the Age of Nine, 1928
One of the founders of Abstract Expressionism, Gorky, paints himself as a nine year old boy. Before his total development into an Abstract language, Gorky’s eyes are wide and appear sorrowful; some critics have suggested his face appears mask-like. He is dressed in smart clothes, and I personally see a face of sadness, as if he is looking out at something that is causing him pain. I may think this because I’ve just read his biography. At the age of 8 his mother died in his arms while him and his family fled the war in Turkey. Gorky and his sister made it to America, and stayed with distant relatives. Maybe this painting is him when he has arrived in America, faced with starting a new life for him and his sister? Gorky perhaps paints this self-portrait to depict the emotions he felt at this time in his life.
5. Artemesia Gentileschi
-Self-Portrait and the Allegory of Painting, 1638-39
You must’ve heard of Artemesia Gentileschi. She is one of the few women to have a successful career in art in Early Modern Europe.
The muses were female in ancient Greek mythology, and this tradition continues through the canon of art history.Where a male artist might show himself portraying a woman dressed up as a muse, or with a picture of a muse behind him as an allegory of painting, Gentileschi can show herself personifying painting.
This allegory with the traditional muse however, is refused by her tough, muscular image. She isn’t delicate or looking wistfully out to the viewer; that is not painting. Painting is a woman, but she is a worker, she is strong and not a mere aesthetic flower.
Gentileschi often painted powerful female characters. For example, if you look at her Judith Slaying Holofernes and compare it to Carravagio’s own depicition of this scene, you can see that Gentieschi’s Judith is far more active and powerful. I like to think she was a bit of a feminist, long, long before feminism existed as an ideology.
4. Pablo Picasso 
-Self Portrait facing Death, 1972
Picasso produced a number of self-portraits. This one is my favourite. Created a year before his death, the piece is done with crayon and is his last well known self-portrait. Eyes wide with angular bags marked underneath them, Picasso has painted the fear that comes with the anticipation of death. He doesn’t hide however. He doesn’t blink. He confronts it.
As I highlighted, this is his last well known self-portrait. It isn’t however, the final one Picasso created. In the last months before his death, Picasso created these three self-portraits. The progression of them is interesting. Here they are in order… The detail dissolves, perhaps like the body does when it moves closer to death.
-Self Portrait, June 28th 1972
-Self-Portrait, July 2nd, 1972
-Self-Portrait, July 3rd 1972
While Picasso was 91 when he died, his death was sudden. He woke up one day unable to move, and died later that day. These studies seem to have been done in a quick period, when Picasso was contemplating death and decay. There are no self-portraits after these, maybe he had grown bored with the topic.
3. Gustave Courbet
-The Artist’s Studio: A real allegory summing up seven years of my artistic and moral life, 1854-1855
The figures in the painting are allegorical representations of various influences on Courbet’s artistic life. On the left are human figures from all levels of society. The sort of figures recognisable in his realist paintings. Gravediggers, prostitutes and laborers are all present. The dog even reminds me of the dog in The Burial at Ornans.
In the center, Courbet works on a landscape, while turned away from a nude model; a symbol of academic art tradition. On the right are friends and associates of Courbet. Notable are his wife and the infamous Charles Baudelaire.
“….It’s the whole world coming to me to be painted, on the right are all the shareholders, by that I mean friends, fellow workers and art lovers. On the left is the other world of everyday life: the masses, wretchedness, poverty, wealth, the exploited and the exploiters, people who make a living from death…”.
Courbet places himself between the people he holds dear on the right, and all the things he sees wrong on the left. He is the painter bridging the gap between these worlds and is presented as a mediator. Courbet thus affirms the artist’s important role in society. To break from traditional academic art, to condemn some, while fight for others.
2. Vincent Van Gogh
-Self-Portrait as a Painter, 1888
Artists want to create an image of themselves in self-portraits, and thus a common image was to present themselves as the artist. Van Gogh painted many self-portraits, but I’ve chosen this one to discuss. He stands in front of his easel, palette and brushes in hand. We see the colours red, yellow, blue, orange, purple and green on the palette – precisely the tones he used for the painting. He worked with contrasting colours, laid down side by side to intensify one another: the blue of his smock, for instance, and the orange-red of his beard.
This is the last painting Van Gogh painted in Paris. In a letter to his sister he said he was tired and exhausted mentally and physically after living in the intense world of bohemian Paris. Van Gogh looks out with tired eyes after struggling in these years to be recognised as a painter. After this, he moved to the South of France looking for new scenes to inspire him.
- Frida Kahlo- The Queen of the Selfie
“I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.”
-Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940
Frida Kahlo was the Queen of the Selfie. She was often alone, ill and bedridden, and therefore she was often her only subject. This painting is notable because it contains so many symbolic references. Her neck is bleeding from the piercing thorns of the necklace . A humming bird is hanging on the thorn which knots around her throat. Her expression is calm and solemn. It seems she is patiently enduring the pain, the pain that haunted her for her entire life. The creatures are also symbolic. The traditional black cat; a symbol for bad luck, while the bird often symbolises freedom and life. Especially the hummingbird, which is colorful and always hovering above flowers. In this painting however, the humming bird is black and lifeless. Kahlo uses these objects to create an image of her life and emotions as she looks out with a fairly neutral expression to the viewer.
These are just a few of the artists whose self-portraits I admire, and who show the variation in which artists have presented the image of themselves. There are so many more I love, I could have gone on for hours. What are you favourite art history selfies?
The Artistique 