Finding Out Who I Really Am

One of the Art Challenge Projects I dreaded was the self portrait.  Let's face it - I am not a trained artist - I don't draw or paint.  My drawings tend to be stick figures and my paintings of faces look like, well, messes.

And I didn't want to do a selfie, either.

About self-portaits, Peter Conrad wrote a review in 2014 of the book Self Portrait - A Cultural History by James Hall, in which he also pondered the importance of self portraits as a psychological journey.  He wrote that selfies basically look the same - identical poses, look-alike grins, taken only to mark an occasion or for self-aggrandizement. 

 Which was something I noticed on Thursday while I was waiting for a bus home.  Two women were entertaining themselves at the stop by taking constant photos of each other on a cell phone as each posed in increasingly suggestive poses.  Their antics were cheered on by the guys waiting at the bus stop, as well as guys driving by.  

Anyway, Hall says in his book that a painted self portrait is a sort of surgical penetration, an intense study while photographed portraits are instantaneous and ephemeral, skin deep in fact.  I would disagree with this, at least in the case of portrait photography done by the truly great photographers.  

The portraits done by Dorothea Lange, for example, are searing looks into the sitter's soul.

Who can forget Diane Arbus' photo of Germaine Greer, or her photos of circus people?

And of course Yousef Karsh's photographs of Jessye Norman, the great soprano

These photos really do get to the heart of their subjects.  I cannot call them instantaneous and ephemeral.

Hall sees early self-portraiture as reflexes of Christian conscience, and a way of checking that the artist is still here, not just a figment of his or her imagination.  The great artists painted their portraits with all the warts and wrinkles, like this one by Rembrandt

and Gustave Courbet

Contemporary self-portraiture in his eyes, however, is but a means of self-promotion, not self-review.

In light of all of this, I really wanted my self-portrait to serve as a way to review my life and the things that have created ME.  

And because I am, again, not trained to paint or draw myself (or anything else), I have to use photography.

I'll show you what I did soon.  

But the next time you see a painted self-portrait, as opposed to the ubiquitous selfie found on FB, Twitter or Instagram, appreciate the amount of time and skill it took to create that intense look into the soul.  I know I will.

later,
lin