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Self-Portrait (Dürer)
Encyclopedia
Self-Portrait is a painting on wood panel
by the German Renaissance
artist Albrecht Dürer
. Painted early in 1500, just before his 29th birthday, it is the last of his three painted self-portraits. It is considered the most personal, iconic and complex of his self-portraits, and the one that has become fixed in the popular imagination.
The self-portrait is most remarkable because of its arrogant suggestion of divinity in its resemblance to many earlier 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 and raises his hands to the middle of his chest as if in the act of blessing. It is likely that Dürer portrayed himself in this way through a combination of arrogance and a desire by a young and ambitious artist to acknowledge that his talent as God given.
. The face has the inflexibility and impersonal dignity of a mask, hiding the restless turmoil of anguish and passion within."
Geometric analysis of the composition demonstrates its relatively rigid symmetry, with several highlights aligned very close to a vertical axis down the middle of the painting. However, the work is not completely symmetrical; his head is slightly right of centre, his hair not quite in the middle——the strands of hair fall differently on either sidewhile his eyes look slightly to the left.
In 1500 a frontal pose was exceptional for a secular portrait; in Italy the long fashion for profile portraits was just coming to an end, but being replaced with the three-quarters view which had been the normal pose in Northern Europe since about 1420, and which Dürer had used in his earlier self-portraits (see gallery). Fully frontal poses remained unusual, although Hans Holbein
painted several of Henry VIII of England
and his queens, perhaps under instruction to use the pose. Late medieval and Early Renaissance art had developed the more difficult three-quarters view, and artists were proud of their skill in using it; to viewers in 1500 and after a frontal pose had associations with images from medieval religious art, and above all images of Christ.
The self-portrait is of a markedly more mature Dürer than both the 1493 Strasbourg self-portrait and the 1498 self-portrait which he produced after his first visit to Italy; in both of these earlier paintings he had highlighted his fashionable hairstyle and clothing and played on his youthful good looks. Dürer turned 28 around 1500, the time of this work. In the medieval stages of life, 28 marked the transition from youth to maturity. The portrait therefore commemorates a turning point in the artist's life and in the millennium: the year 1500, displayed in the centre of the upper left background field, is here celebrated as epochal. Moreover, the placing of the year 1500 above his signature initials, A.D., gives them an added meaning as an abbreviation of Anno Domini
. The painting may have been created as part of a celebration of the saeculum
by the circle of the Renaissance humanist scholar Conrad Celtes
, which included Dürer.
Dürer chooses to present himself monumentally, in a style that unmistakably recalls depictions of Christ—the implications of which have been debated among art critics. A conservative interpretation suggests that he is responding to the tradition of the Imitation of Christ
. A more controversial view reads the painting is a proclamation of the artist's supreme role as creator. This latter view is supported by the painting's Latin inscription, composed by Celtes’ personal secretary, which translates as; "I, Albrecht Durer of Nuremberg portrayed myself in everlasting colours aged twenty-eight years". A further interpretation holds that the work is an acknowledgement that his artistic talents are God-given. Art historian Joseph Koerner
wrote that "to seeing the frontal likeness and inward curved left hand as echoes of, respectively, the "A" and nestled "D" of the monogram
featured at the right ... nothing we see in a Dürer is not Dürer's, monogram or not."
Late Northern medieval painting
often portrayed Christ in a symmetrical pose looking directly out of the canvas, especially when shown as Salvator Mundi
. Typically he was shown with a short beard, moustache and brown parted hair. Dürer has rendered himself in this manner, and gives himself brown hair, despite his other self-portraits showing his hair as reddish-blond. The painting so closely follows the conventions of late medieval religious art that it was used as the basis for depictions of Christ in a woodcut by Sebald Beham
of c. 1520. This was perhaps intended to be passed off as a print by Dürer from the start, and in later printings bears a very large Dürer monogram, though this appears to have been added to the block several decades later; it was accepted by most experts as a Dürer until the 19th century. In the next century, the face was used for Christ again, in a Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery of 1637 by Johann Georg Vischer.
Dürer presents himself in similar poses and expressions in both his 1498 Christ as Man of Sorrows and 1503 charcoal drawing Head of the Dead Christ. Both are believed to be self-portraits, although they are not named as such. However, artist historians believe that they bear remarkable similarities to his know self-portraits - including prominent eyes, a narrow mouth with a full upper lip, and the shape of both the nose and indent between lip and nose, that Dürer intend to represent himself in these works.
in Munich
, Germany. Nuremberg had had a copy made a few years earlier, which replaced the original on display in the City Hall.
Dürer was highly conscious of his self-image, and painted two earlier self-portraits: one in 1493 now in the Musée du Louvre, and another in 1498, now in the Museo del Prado
. He also inserted self-portraits in other paintings, and made self-portrait drawings, although, he did not portray himself in any of his prints. At least twelve self-portrait images survive, as well as the lost gouache
Dürer sent to Raphael
c 1515.
Panel painting
A panel painting is a painting made on a flat panel made of wood, either a single piece, or a number of pieces joined together. Until canvas became the more popular support medium in the 16th century, it was the normal form of support for a painting not on a wall or vellum, which was used for...
by the German Renaissance
German Renaissance
The German Renaissance, part of the Northern Renaissance, was a cultural and artistic movement that spread among German thinkers in the 15th and 16th centuries, which originated from the Italian Renaissance in Italy...
artist Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...
. Painted early in 1500, just before his 29th birthday, it is the last of his three painted self-portraits. It is considered the most personal, iconic and complex of his self-portraits, and the one that has become fixed in the popular imagination.
The self-portrait is most remarkable because of its arrogant suggestion of divinity in its resemblance to many earlier 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 and raises his hands to the middle of his chest as if in the act of blessing. It is likely that Dürer portrayed himself in this way through a combination of arrogance and a desire by a young and ambitious artist to acknowledge that his talent as God given.
Description
In its directness and apparent confrontion with the viewer, the self-portrait is unlike any that came before. It is half-length, frontal and highly symmetrical, and its lack of a conventional background seemingly presents him without regard to time or place. The placement of the inscriptions in the dark fields on either side of Dürer are presented as if floating in space, emphasizing that the portrait has a highly symbolic meaning. Its sombre mood is achieved through the use of brown tones set against the plain black background. The lightness of touch and tone seen in his earlier two painted self-portraits has been replaced by an far more introverted and complex representation. In this work, Dürer's style seems to have developed into what art historian Marcel Brion described as "a classicism like that of IngresJean Auguste Dominique Ingres
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was a French Neoclassical painter. Although he considered himself to be a painter of history in the tradition of Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David, by the end of his life it was Ingres's portraits, both painted and drawn, that were recognized as his greatest...
. The face has the inflexibility and impersonal dignity of a mask, hiding the restless turmoil of anguish and passion within."
Geometric analysis of the composition demonstrates its relatively rigid symmetry, with several highlights aligned very close to a vertical axis down the middle of the painting. However, the work is not completely symmetrical; his head is slightly right of centre, his hair not quite in the middle——the strands of hair fall differently on either sidewhile his eyes look slightly to the left.
In 1500 a frontal pose was exceptional for a secular portrait; in Italy the long fashion for profile portraits was just coming to an end, but being replaced with the three-quarters view which had been the normal pose in Northern Europe since about 1420, and which Dürer had used in his earlier self-portraits (see gallery). Fully frontal poses remained unusual, although Hans Holbein
Hans Holbein the Younger
Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history...
painted several of Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
and his queens, perhaps under instruction to use the pose. Late medieval and Early Renaissance art had developed the more difficult three-quarters view, and artists were proud of their skill in using it; to viewers in 1500 and after a frontal pose had associations with images from medieval religious art, and above all images of Christ.
The self-portrait is of a markedly more mature Dürer than both the 1493 Strasbourg self-portrait and the 1498 self-portrait which he produced after his first visit to Italy; in both of these earlier paintings he had highlighted his fashionable hairstyle and clothing and played on his youthful good looks. Dürer turned 28 around 1500, the time of this work. In the medieval stages of life, 28 marked the transition from youth to maturity. The portrait therefore commemorates a turning point in the artist's life and in the millennium: the year 1500, displayed in the centre of the upper left background field, is here celebrated as epochal. Moreover, the placing of the year 1500 above his signature initials, A.D., gives them an added meaning as an abbreviation of Anno Domini
Anno Domini
and Before Christ are designations used to label or number years used with the Julian and Gregorian calendars....
. The painting may have been created as part of a celebration of the saeculum
Saeculum
A saeculum is a length of time roughly equal to the potential lifetime of a person or the equivalent of the complete renewal of a human population. The term was first used by the Etruscans. Originally it meant the period of time from the moment that something happened until the point in time that...
by the circle of the Renaissance humanist scholar Conrad Celtes
Conrad Celtes
Conrad Celtes , also Konrad Celtis and Latin Conradus Celtis , was a German Renaissance humanist scholar and Neo-Latin poet.-Life:...
, which included Dürer.
Iconography
Imitation of Christ
In Christian theology, the Imitation of Christ is the practice of following the example of Jesus. In Eastern Christianity the term Life in Christ is sometimes used for the same concept....
. A more controversial view reads the painting is a proclamation of the artist's supreme role as creator. This latter view is supported by the painting's Latin inscription, composed by Celtes’ personal secretary, which translates as; "I, Albrecht Durer of Nuremberg portrayed myself in everlasting colours aged twenty-eight years". A further interpretation holds that the work is an acknowledgement that his artistic talents are God-given. Art historian Joseph Koerner
Joseph Koerner
Joseph Leo Koerner is an American art historian. The Thomas Professor of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard, he is best known for his work on German art...
wrote that "to seeing the frontal likeness and inward curved left hand as echoes of, respectively, the "A" and nestled "D" of the monogram
Monogram
A monogram is a motif made by overlapping or combining two or more letters or other graphemes to form one symbol. Monograms are often made by combining the initials of an individual or a company, used as recognizable symbols or logos. A series of uncombined initials is properly referred to as a...
featured at the right ... nothing we see in a Dürer is not Dürer's, monogram or not."
Late Northern medieval painting
Medieval art
The medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, over 1000 years of art history in Europe, and at times the Middle East and North Africa...
often portrayed Christ in a symmetrical pose looking directly out of the canvas, especially when shown as Salvator Mundi
Salvator Mundi
Salvator Mundi, or Saviour of the World, is a subject in iconography depicting Christ with his right hand raised in blessing and his left hand holding an orb surmounted by a cross, known as a globus cruciger...
. Typically he was shown with a short beard, moustache and brown parted hair. Dürer has rendered himself in this manner, and gives himself brown hair, despite his other self-portraits showing his hair as reddish-blond. The painting so closely follows the conventions of late medieval religious art that it was used as the basis for depictions of Christ in a woodcut by Sebald Beham
Hans Sebald Beham
Hans Sebald Beham was a German printmaker who did his best work as an engraver, and was also a designer of woodcuts and a painter and miniaturist...
of c. 1520. This was perhaps intended to be passed off as a print by Dürer from the start, and in later printings bears a very large Dürer monogram, though this appears to have been added to the block several decades later; it was accepted by most experts as a Dürer until the 19th century. In the next century, the face was used for Christ again, in a Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery of 1637 by Johann Georg Vischer.
Dürer presents himself in similar poses and expressions in both his 1498 Christ as Man of Sorrows and 1503 charcoal drawing Head of the Dead Christ. Both are believed to be self-portraits, although they are not named as such. However, artist historians believe that they bear remarkable similarities to his know self-portraits - including prominent eyes, a narrow mouth with a full upper lip, and the shape of both the nose and indent between lip and nose, that Dürer intend to represent himself in these works.
Provenance
The portrait was likely donated or sold by Dürer to the Nuremberg city council. It was probably on continuous public display in Nuremberg from just before Dürer's death in 1528 until 1805, when it was sold to the Bavarian royal collection. It is now is in the Alte PinakothekAlte Pinakothek
The Alte Pinakothek is an art museum situated in the Kunstareal in Munich, Germany. It is one of the oldest galleries in the world and houses one of the most famous collections of Old Master paintings...
in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, Germany. Nuremberg had had a copy made a few years earlier, which replaced the original on display in the City Hall.
Dürer was highly conscious of his self-image, and painted two earlier self-portraits: one in 1493 now in the Musée du Louvre, and another in 1498, now in the Museo del Prado
Museo del Prado
The Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
. He also inserted self-portraits in other paintings, and made self-portrait drawings, although, he did not portray himself in any of his prints. At least twelve self-portrait images survive, as well as the lost gouache
Gouache
Gouache[p], also spelled guache, the name of which derives from the Italian guazzo, water paint, splash or bodycolor is a type of paint consisting of pigment suspended in water. A binding agent, usually gum arabic, is also present, just as in watercolor...
Dürer sent to Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
c 1515.
Sources
- Bailey, Martin. Dürer. London: Phaidon Press, 1995. ISBN 0-7148-3334-7
- Brion, Marcel. Dürer. London: Thames and Hudson, 1960.
- Bartrum, Giulia. Albrecht Dürer and his Legacy. London: British Museum Press, 2002, ISBN 0-7141-2633-0
- Campbell, Lorne, Renaissance Portraits, European Portrait-Painting in the 14th, 15th and 16th Centuries. Yale, 1990. ISBN 0-3000-4675-8
- Hutchison, Jane Campbell. Albrecht Dürer A Guide to Research. New York: Garland, 2000. ISBN 0-8153-2114-7
- Koerner, Joseph LeoJoseph KoernerJoseph Leo Koerner is an American art historian. The Thomas Professor of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard, he is best known for his work on German art...
. The moment of self-portraiture in German Renaissance art. University of Chicago Press, 1996. ISBN 0-2264-4999-8 - Shiner, Larry. The Invention of Art: A Cultural History. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-2267-5343-3
- Smith, Robert. Dürer as Christ?, in The Sixteenth Century Journal, Volume 6, No. 2, October 1975. 26-36
- Strauss, Walter L. The Complete Engravings, Etchings and Drypoints of Albrecht Dürer. Dover Books, New York, 1972
- von Fricks, Julian. "Albrecht Dürer the Elder with a Rosary". In: Van Eych to Durer. Borchert, Till-Holger (ed). London: Thames & Hudson, 2011. ISBN 978-0-500-23883-7