2023-04-18 13:29:23
The self-portrait was once an exquisite genre in painting, a way of depicting yourself in a way that others like to see: as art. Since the smartphone, making a self-portrait in the form of the pathetic word ‘selfie’ is no longer so exclusive.
Sometimes history has a lucky hand and then something happens that can only bring pleasure. For example, in 1433. In that year Jan van Eyck painted his portrait, the first self-portrait known to us, which is immediately the self-portrait of all self-portraits. Not an ordinary neat portrait, then, but something spectacular: a slightly skeptical-looking Van Eyck dressed in a wildly appropriate red fantasy turban, made and draped on Van Eyck’s head by a fifteenth-century Iris van Herpen.
Self-portraits are usually painted diaries, such as this one by Van Eyck. He was in an ironic mood that day and wanted to paint himself modestly flamboyant. Revealing. After the Middle Ages, real painters wanted to show themselves, preferably in a slightly interesting way. Such as Dürer, who painted himself as Christ with wild curls, or Parmigianino, who put himself in a convex mirror as a fifteen-year-old boy. There is always something special with…
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#selfie #portrait
