Self Image

Going back a few posts I was looking into some self portraits. I have never painted my own self portrait and I’m very keen into trying it. However I image it’s going to be one of my biggest challenges yet I’m looking forward to it (might wait till after my exams tehe).

Andy Warhol seems to be ultimate self-publicist. He seems to be fascinated with commercialism and supposedly ‘low culture’ imagery. In Warhol’s work there seems to be the implication that life is just wallpaper, just additional meaningless information because technology has outstripped the need for historical narrative. The work appears very sterile and emotionless. Self Portrait 1964 is a prime example of this emotionless spread. The simplicity and block colour gives it an almost mechanical and lifeless tone, however this is the way in which Warhol wants to be immortalised. It looks like it is one of many on a film strip due to the small gestures residing towards the bottom of the plane. The dominating glasses remove his identity yet ironically also make a bold statement.

Replication is also used within Rene Magritte’s ‘La Repoduction Interdite (not to be reproduced)’ 1937. It is actually a portrait of Edward James who was a famous collector and patron of the Surrealists. There is a denial of logic in the image, which raises questions about how much Magritte knows (or wants us to believe he knows) about the sitter’s identity. On the table is a book of poetry by Edgar Allen Poe, the macabre stories were eagerly read by the Surrealists. The book (unlike the man) is mirrored in the glass. It is very subtle differences that send a great chill down the spine of the viewer. The head is slightly turned to face the ‘replication’. It plays a very uncomfortable voyeuristic play on figure and the viewer is pushed the composition themselves. Magritte plays a kind of game with reality. The image is evidently refined yet seems to also be a void of some kind. It is very still and calm yet threatening.

Marc Quinn’s Self 1991 also displays a air of threatening quiet. You could argue that this self portrait is the most self portrait possible, yet notions of spirituality could reject that claim. It intrinsically has Marc Quinn’s DNA in the work as the head is cast from the artist’s own congealed blood. Despite it being a bodily fluid the piece remains very quiet and modest. It also remains fairly lifeless in its glass box in inside its sterile white room. It mirrors the idea of Caravaggio’s self deprecating portrait of his own head by evoking the gruesome bloody honesty of the flesh and bone and acts of violence in which we live.

This painting has been dated as early as 1605 and as late as 1609-1610. It is included in the list of candidates as Caravaggio's last work. Its melancholy would suit in fact the gloomy thoughts of the artist's final years. Although there is the proud strong figure holding up goliaths head it is the head which is the self representation of Caravaggio as he knew that the end was looming for himself. Yet it remains profoundly emotive to place himself as the monster. The piece remains a fragment of two stories; the story of David and goliath as well as Caravaggio’s own personal life drama.

Tai-Schan Schierenberg’s self portrait in 2002 also remains fragmented but in physical application as well as in narrative. It appears only an off glimpse in design. Little is told about the figure other than his fascination with the application and mounding of paint, which creates a astounding portrait. However physically it is also fragmented as it feels fairly incomplete due to the edges but the beauty is that this creates the focus. It is not to bold to suggest that the so called completion of the piece would detract from the character of it.

By approach from a design aspect alone Vincent Van Gogh’s self portrait from 1887 could be likened to the harmony of nails down a blackboard. The bold illuminating blues are far saturated from the rest of the composition and therefore draw attention away from the main face. The incompleteness of the surrounding area is arguable a means of controlling this conflict but the painting. Yet it is inspiring as it captures more if the reality of Van Gogh. He isn’t a conventional painter nor is he the conventional mentality. Van Gogh used to paint some of his self-portraits over other works, he was not in a situation where others would be willing to pose for him so through necessity he had to paint himself. “If I manage to paint the colours of my own face - something which is not without its problems – I can then paint the faces of others.” The mark making is based on pointillist theories and the suit he wears immortalizes him respectfully, but it also draws you into to contemplate the figure as the image appears broken. I always find that if I am looking at a group of works there are those that speak to you whilst some others not as much. This painting is one that clearly speaks to the viewer.

I thought that the last painting I should talk about should be radically different; after all the world of art is definitely a turbulent one, so why should we ruin the fun by calming the waters. George Baselitz ‘The inverted motif’ from 1960; does not conform to the traditional portrait, and why should it? The brush marks crudely outline the purple and orange figure which seems to embody every aesthetic clash known to man. However it is all held together by the bold black lines. These lines are not complete outline and also serve as a more refined tonal detail. The composition on the whole appears very distressed, yet it is this uncomforting, tactile effect that is its quality. It isn’t difficult to see that it was meant to push boundaries. The name itself tells us this, simply from the term ‘inverted’.

This has been a great whirlwind of a rant for me, i hope – if you exist – it was for you too.