The most important self-portraits in history.
An Inquiry of Albrecht Dürer’s Self Portraits
"Why is Zooey Deschanell marrying Ben Gibbard?"
To most people, the portrait is defined as the following: “A portrait done of oneself by oneself.” That being said, the definition merely scratches the surface. Self-portraits in the context of art history, especially those done by the “masters” were rarely ever a simple arbitrary rendition of the artist’s figure. They were also the artist’s perception of themselves, and a glimpse into their state of mind at the time (Van Gogh is the best example of this) as well as sometimes being used either as simple honesty or even as something resembling self propaganda. The most peculiar it can be argued were the series of self-portrait paintings by Albrecht Durer from 1484 to 1500. These were among the first prolific and purposeful incarnations in Western art, with the exception of Van Eyck’s single self-portrait of himself in a turban (fig. 1). Still, some questions remain around those 4 paintings persist. What was his motivation? Why did he break the mold and do outright avatars of himself, and were there hidden meanings behind this? Perhaps most important of all, what effect did this have on the future generations of artists? In roughly a half millennium, it is hard to imagine what the impact would have been without these. Obviously, self-portraits would still exist, as these were not world shattering art productions, and 500 years is a very long time. Nonetheless, their gravity cannot be ignored, especially for the artists that followed a mere 2 or 3 generations after Durer’s death.
Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) was born in Nuremburg, one of the prime art centers of Northern Europe in the 15th century, on the tail end of the Northern Italian Renaissance. His father was a master goldsmith and like all fathers of the era, wanted his son to inherit the family business. However, in 1484 at the age of 13 he produced a silverpoint drawing of a self-portrait (fig. 2), which is his first surviving work. The simply astonishing amount of his skill was immediately apparent. He was soon ushered off to apprentice under the successful German artist Michael Wolmgemut. He then toured Italy twice, in 1494 and again later in 1505 to study the old masters, where in this time he painted his other 3 portraits. It was also in this period that he made his famous watercolors, some of which were the first pure landscapes in Western art. Durer’s fame was established while he was Nuremburg between his tours of Italy with his few paintings, and far and above everything else by his woodcuts and engravings which were unparalleled by any other artist for generations. Weather it was in his Apocalypse (fig. 3) series in 1498 or his single engraving prints like Melencolia I (fig. 4), in 1514, scholars still marvel at his subtlety, technique, and finesse with the arguably difficult to wield medium. All in all, it could be said that Durer was an immensely talented artist, with a Midas-touch for every medium he set his mind to, even publishing his four books on measurement (‘Underweysung der Messung mit dem Zirckel und Richtscheyt’) and human proportion (‘Vier Bücher von Menschlicher Proportion) in 1528. Even so, there still remains a great deal of mystery and thusly focus on his self-portrait workings done periodically through the second and third decades of his life, and sadly not much attention is brought to this selection on a large scale when discussing Albrecht Durer the man.
It has only been relatively recently that the artist has been viewed as someone of merit based upon the skills of their craft. For centuries, the artists were simply viewed as craftsmen working for a patron. Their art, be it in sculpture or painting, has almost always been for somebody else- usually a patron more wealthy and of great status. This meant that it was established that the artist was on roughly the same level as a shoe cobbler, or a tailor. It then makes sense that when painters began to include their likeness in their commissioned works, that it was subtle. Masaccio was one of the early ones, where his head is peeking from the background of his Brancacci Chapel frescoes from 1426 (fig. 5). Botticelli did the same thing was the figure on the lower right of his Adoration of the Magi (fig. 6) in 1475. There is a common thread of the inserted self-portraits to be off to one side of the focal area, and to be staring directly at the viewer. Durer did not leave himself out of the realm of insertions, with two altarpieces he painted: Heller Altarpiece (fig. 7) in 1508, and later with Adoration of the Trinity (fig. 8), 1508-11. In both, he is a full figure shown in the background and bottom left, respectively. Like the forerunners, he is not easily noticed, but he is markedly different, and staring straight out of the frame towards the viewer. There is also the vein of the hidden self-portrait. This was most famously done with Raphael’s The School Of Athens (fig. 9) in 1510 where there are purportedly 3 hidden portraits. Raphael depicts himself as Apelles and in an offhand tribute; he presents Leonardo Da Vinci as Plato, and Michelangelo as Heraclites. Even so, these could be related to esoteric inside-joke more than the outright announcement of the artist’s stature. Durer did not agree to the idea of the artist being low class at all. He was very much aware of his social status and reputation and intended to elevate himself through the self-portrait works. Until this time, it was largely nobility and aristocracy who commissioned portraits, and any other portraits were a direct link to biblical themes or antiquity- any of thousands of images of the Madonna with child are a testament to this fact.
Somehow, he did this before mirrors were really "in" with the poor folk. Wonder what he's pointing to...
Albrecht Durer’s first self-portrait, the 1484 silverpoint image of himself at age 13 (fig. 2), was not an attempt to elevate his status. It was however, a figure study drawn from life with incredible accuracy for a thirteen-year-old boy. This was to foreshadow his future skill in outright drawing and technical line skill, which was to be his forté in the engraving and printmaking arenas. It was also the image that helped him advance beyond the son of a goldsmith to join the ranks of artists under the patronage of Wolmgemut. Compounded with the fact that it was one of the first self-portraits of any older artist and the pattern for Durer’s success begins to emerge. The famous examples that parallel this are Da Vinci’s self-portrait drawing in 1512 (fig. 10) and Bellini’s drawing from 1496 (fig. 11). He later renders a pen and ink drawing of himself around age 21 in 1492. In the same vein is the 1484 self-portrait (fig. 12), it resembles a figure study, only more so. On the same page is the study of a pillow and presumably his hand. These in today’s context seem little different from the figure studies in an art student’s sketchbook, and it can be argued as being just so. In 1492, he would have been still in his apprenticeship and preparing to leave for Italy, so he was technically an art student. This drawing can be interpreted as Durer viewing himself more and more as not just another face, but as an artist and as a figure to be drawn in studied in the purest sense of art.
Too Easy...
It is in 1493 that Albrecht finally paints himself at age 26 with a portrait done in oil on vellum (fig. 13). He was in the midst of wanderjahre, which was a Germanic student’s custom of travel to many different artists workshops to lean skills from them. He mainly focused on learning from Germany’s top engravers of the era but also was due to be married. He painted the 1493 Self Portrait with Carnation to be sent back to his fiancé, Agnes Frey, who was residing in Nuremburg awaiting his return the following year. (Bart rum) The fifteenth century was in a time when arranged marriages were still the norm and Durer’s case was no exception. It could then be reasoned that Agnes had never seen Albrecht, so he decided to send her a self portrait of him not as a young traveling art student, but instead (and perhaps wiser for it) as a homely young gentleman. Albrecht does not attempt to establish himself as some great imperial leader, but as a gentle lover and husband with a boyish form, clutching flowers. It can only be assumed that Agnes was quite pleased. This could be seen as a slight attempt at self-propaganda, though not nearly to the scale used later by people such as emperor Napoleon. Just how honest this is, it is hard to say, but the purpose behind it is very clear. Durer was making himself the main subject of a work that was to be sent to his wife so that she may know her husband. He is using his artistic skill to represent himself and himself only. Why is it that nobody else has done this before on such a large and repeated scale? It can be concluded that it was merely the combination of factors that led to Durer’s self-portrait. He was primarily against the belief that artists were lower class and therefore they should not be mitigated to hide from view, and also that he had to somehow represent himself as an ideal husband without being there in person to do so. Even so, the importance of this act is only truly appreciated when it is viewed with his other self-portraits.
In 1498 Durer was done with his tour through Italy, where he was integrating heavily the Nordic and Italian influenced that he bore witness to over the course of his education. In this same year, he had completed his Apocalypse series of engravings, and they were being sold remarkably well, and establishing Durer among the wealthy merchant class of citizens in his hometown.It was with this prompting that he painted his 1498 self-portrait (fig. 14), which Joseph Koerner describes in The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art:
“In the panel, perhaps for the first time in the history of art, self-portraiture distinguishes itself from other kinds of portraits. Dressed in lavish and festive clothing of modish taste and design, and wearing the expensive doeskin gloves that were a Nuremberg specialty, Dürer elevates himself above the modest social rank into which he was born. […] Italian aspects of the painting’s execution –its soft modeling, stable architectonic construction, and atmospheric landscape passage– bear witness to foreign sources of the artist’s conception of himself. For it is in Italy that he encountered a new, humanistic conception of the sovereignty of the artist, a conception that he recognized was missing in his own native Germany. The Pardon panel combines artistic pride, evident in the daring of its pictorial invention and voiced in its inscription, with Dürer’s personal pride in who he is, how he looks, where he has been, and what he is worth. It celebrates the power of the individual and elevates what self-portraiture is intended to depict: not merely the look and status of its maker, but the underlying idea of painting itself.”
Though it may not have been for the first time in the history of art, this painting of Durer is another step in his evolution of self-discovery and projection that allows us another glimpse into his mindset. It cannot be said as to weather or not he was successful in portraying himself as a man of status in Italy. Her certainly had status and wealth in Nuremburg. However, it is more important to recognize what his intentions were in the first place and the fact that he had them at all. Not many artists could be pinpointed to have the desire to change the perception of art in such a specific manner.
It’s 1500 that Durer completed his final portrait work (fig. 15). This was by no means his last work; he still produced paintings wand engravings for another 20 years. His last large painting, The Four Apostles (fig. 16) is dated in 1526 and he had prints made up to this time as well. In the 1500’s there was a large scare of the coming Apocalypse, and it was this superstition that had largely influenced his engraving works, but also a handful of his paintings. Also in 1500, Durer was around 28 or 29 years old, so when these two things are considered, then the self-portrait becomes a truly epic depiction of Jesus at the same age. Durer’s Christ-like image looms forward powerfully from the frame. He is at the most direct position, as his symmetrical visage peers out as a man of great status and importance. He sits very close to the picture plane, absentmindedly touching the fur lapels of the robe. Just like the earlier image of artists inserted portraits peering out from the picture plane, breaking the fourth wall, Durer’s face does this, only much more strikingly. Another separation from the past portraits is the very directness of this image. Unlike nearly every portrait and self-portrait of the past, instead of the three-quarters view, Durer sits full front. His face, in its relaxed but watchful repose is very reminiscent of the old Byzantine era icons in mosaic (fig. 17). The Italian’s are partly to thank for the influence of this work’s deeper meanings. The Renaissance was perhaps the greatest epoch in history where man realized the importance of man, and it was Durer’s time in Italy that he picked up and embraced this ideology. He is not proclaiming him self to be Christ, but instead he is relating himself to Jesus as a proclamation of his faith, but more it represents his ascension from the son of a craftsman to a wealthy and established artist- and artist in the sense of a man who’s creativity and talent lend themselves to be worthy of much respect. It represents his, as well as Europe’s acceptance of humanism and the rise of artists to be intellectuals and people with real talent, even down to the use of Latin in the spaces, showing his literacy and the intellectual appeal to the viewer. This painting can be viewed just as much of an announcement as it can be a painting. Durer had by now nearly fully realized his wish to elevate artists in the Western culture, and though it did not resound towards artists as a whole in Europe, it did succeed for him in shifting the societies views on what portraits should be, and what self-portraits ought to be.
Albrecht Durer’s impact in portraiture in the art world has inarguably had an impact, but it has been a slow and subtle one. Artists that came after him, like Rubens and especially Rembrandt, as well as some of his contemporaries such as Van Eyck seemed inspired by his bold and reflective paintings. Rembrandt for example, painted dozens of self-portraits over his lifetime, even appearing in costume on occasion to elevate his image just as Durer had done in his latter two self-portraits (fig. 18). After some time, Van Gogh tried his hand at the introspective self-portrait (fig. 19). Would these artists have rendered themselves on canvas if it were not for Durer? It is safe to say that that is most likely, however would they have been so bold and so forward with their work without him? It is doubtful, at least for those generations. It is hard to say where it would have landed today. However, if we ignore the aspect of the lasting influence Durer has had, there is still a wealth of information to gather from the portraits in their own context. Here we have a man living in the height of the artistic and philosophic change who is dealing with these new concepts. He was not opening doors into the deepest level of his mind, but we can appreciate his intentions and the reflections those made towards his perceptions. “Dürer painted his image to project an air of importance, to create perhaps, an increased social status. He was keenly aware of his audience. His portraits, though they do record change and emotional transition over time, were not an exploration of his psyche so much as a means of showing his rising social status” (Janson, p.480). He had become the figure of greatness he had long envisioned to be and his self-portraits were his way of showing it to the world, to us, just what he was and we have not forgotten this. It was also leaving a mold for artist’s generations later to understand: the mark of being an artist was not to be underestimated. Artists no longer had to subject themselves to the background as in the pre-Renaissance era, nor did they have to rely on others to gather who they are from their interpretations. Durer successfully made it apparent that it was now acceptable for the artists to recognize themselves as a figure worth respect and he used his own face and his own likeness on 3 occasions to prove it to the art world and eventually to us.
Image References:
I am too lazy to recopy all of these. Research them on your own.
Do work son.
Figure 1: Jan van Eyck, Self-portrait, oil on wood, 1433
Figure 2: Albrecht Dürer at thirteen, silverpoint, Albertina, 1484
Figure 3: Albrecht Dürer: Apocalypse of John – The Dragon with the Seven Heads, 1498
Figure 4: Albrecht Dürer engraving, “Melencolia I”, engraving, 1514
Figure 5: Masaccio inserted self-portrait from the Brancacci Chapel frescoes, 1424-6.
Figure 6: Sandro Botticelli’s “Adoration of the Magi” (1475). The position in the (right) corner
Figure 7: Albrecht Dürer, Heller Altarpiece (detail), 1508-09
Figure 8: Albrecht Dürer, Adoration of the Trinity, (detail) 1508-11.
Figure 9: Raphael, School of Athens, fresco, 1509-10 –Raphael is the figure on the far upper-right side. Below is another detail of Plato and Aristotle.
Figure 10: Leonardo Da Vinci, Self Portrait, pen and ink, 1512
Figure 11: Gentile Bellini, Self Portrait, black chalk, 1496
Figure 12: Albrecht Dürer, Self Portrait with Hand and Pillow, pen and ink, 1484.
Figure 13: Albrecht Dürer, “Self Portrait With Carnation” 1493, oil, originally on vellum.
Figure 14: Albrecht Dürer, self-portrait, oil on panel, 1498.
Figure 15: Albrecht Dürer, Self-portrait, oil on wood, 1500.
Figure 16: Albrecht Dürer, “The Four Apostles”, Oil on linden wood, 1526.
Figure 17: Christ Pantocrator, mosaic, circa 1100.
Figure 18: Rembrandt, Self-portrait in costume, oil on canvas, 1658.
Figure 19: Van Gogh, self-portrait, oil on canvas, 1889
