self portrait
early 1888
oil on canvas
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Vincent Van Gogh created a number of self portraits within his life time. The one above documents himself painting which symbolizes the ideas of individualism, as he is displaying a quality and passion of his own. I have noticed by looking at a number of his portrait pieces, a common recurrence is Van Goghs serious, blank like expression on his face. It doesn't seem to matter what the portrait consists of, the artist still displays the same depressed like expression. This could be a representation of his feelings or state of mind. Initially Vincent would use models to help himself to develop his drawing skills. This soon became an expensive system, leading Vincent to practice on drawing and painting himself. This was also a way to promote himself by selling or giving away the sketches or paintings.
“Besides, I think I have spoken the truth, but if I should succeed in replacing in goods the money spent, I should only be doing my duty. And then, something practical I can do is portrait painting.”
Self portrait
1966
silk screen print
I find this self portrait of Andy Warhol to be very clever as it is a way to promote himself as an individual. He he is famous for his pop art prints of well known celebrities. He has taken his classic style of printing and adapted an image of himself to his work. This gives the viewer the idea that he is as famous as the celebrities that are traditionally used in Warhol's works. Naturally, comparing himself to celebrities such as Marylin Munroe, which gives the impression that Warhol thinks highly of himself and creates an egotistic message to the viewers. The pose that Warhol displays in this message is also very superior like, which resembles the famous 'thinking pose'. this reinforces the superior feeling that Warhol is trying to create to the audience.
http://www.vangoghgallery.com/misc/selfportrait.html
http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/show-full/piece/?object=92.4033&search=&page=&f=Title
Hey abby!
ReplyDeleteYeah I definitely agree with you on how Andy Warhol was clever in portraying himself in his prints just as he does celebrities. It’s quite a resemblance to the humanism ideas that occurred in the Renaissance, right? By that I mean how renaissance artists moved on from painting non-secular subjects to very secular subjects such as portraits of themselves. In this case, im connecting the non-secular renaissance art to Warhol’s celebrity prints (back in those times it was religious figures that were looked up to, and now days it’s celebrities). The same way renaissance artists started replacing non-religious figures with portraits of people, so has Warhol replaced prints of looked up to celebrities with prints of himself.
I agree with the fact that Andy Warhol is using himself like he has used celebrities like Munroe to promote himself. This is a good example of self promotion of the artist because Warhol did have a big ego when it came to his work and his subjects. I also totally agree that his pose defines his ego because of the seriousness of it which therefore shows him thinking highly of himself and better than others. To even use yourself as a subject you must have some kind of ego such as Gavin Turk has used himself plenty of times in his sculptures and has a very big ego. Also i reckon having yourself repeated in one image is effective and shows yourself in different lights and colours is also a bit self-obseesed but successful.
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