ABSTRACT
The artist’s self-portrait has long been a vehicle of self-presentation to patrons and to a wider public. In modern times, however, the painted self-portrait has frequently functioned as a vehicle of self-discovery, wherein the artist re-(re)presents himself. Confronting himself initially (and literally) in a mirror image, the artist re-presents himself in the further doubling of the mirror image by means of the one he or she creates on the canvas. The latter represents a further objectification of the self. On the other hand, the painted self-portrait subjectivizes the artist’s image through his inner self-reflection—self-knowledge acting as a “corrective” to the mere mirror likeness. Although the result of this self-finding, the finished canvas or print, is sometimes made available to the public, the essential nature of the searching self-portrait is private. Its end is the activity itself, as a means of self-understanding or self-affirmation. The public exhibition of these expressive modern self-portraits, of course, works (and often consciously on the part of the artist) either to reaffirm or to alter the public’s conception of the artist-subject and what it may expect from him or her.
