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PORTRAIT
Renaissance to Contemporary
National Portrait Gallery, London 20 October 2005 – 29 January 2006
ART Art Gallery of New South Wales 17 February – 14 May 2006
GALLERY
N SW Jointly organised by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
and the National Portrait Gallery, London
EDUCATION KIT
CONTENTS
SECTION 1 SELF-PORTRAITS
Introduction
Commentary
Themes
Artist at the easel
Playing with mirrors
Artist as woman
Role-play
Between life and death
Specialist of self-portraits
The body of paint
Significant others
What is a self-portrait?
A brief history: process, technologies and the self-portrait
Artist list
Timeline: self-portraits in context
Exhibition floor plan
AGNSW collection connections
Glossary
Selected references
KIT OUTLINE
Produced by the Public Programs Department
© 2006 Art Gallery of New South Wales
pp@ag.nsw.gov.au This education kit highlights key works, ideas and
www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/education
themes from the exhibition Self portrait: Renaissance
to Contemporary. The kit aims to provide a context for
using the works and exhibition as a resource for K–6
Cover: and 7–12 education audiences. It may be used in
Sofonisba Anguissola
Self-portrait at the easel, painting a devotional conjunction with a visit to the exhibition or as pre-visit
panel 1556 (detail)
Museum-Zamek, Lancut, Poland
or post-visit resource material.
AR T
GALLERY PRESIDENT’S
N SW COUNCIL
INTRODUCTION
‘… it seems that everything is alive Selected from within Western traditions, the 56
and emerging from the panel. portraits in this exhibition explore the qualities
They are mirrors. They are mirrors, no! particular to the self-portrait painted in oils. The
They are not paintings …’ earliest portrait dates from the 15th century, when
oil painting was invented; the most recent was
Artist and writer Karel van Mander 1604
painted during the past year.
The exhibition celebrates the phenomenon of
Merging the roles of artist, subject and viewer, the painter as a distinctive, creative figure in
the self-portrait offers a most intimate encounter society, worthy of representation and considered
with artistic creativity and consciousness. to be somehow present in the works that he
Self-portraiture developed in Europe as a or she makes. As well as demonstrating the
significant and publicly recognised part of an inventiveness, wit and skill of individual artists,
artist’s work from the late 15th and early 16th the exhibition investigates a number of themes
centuries. There are three main reasons for this:
that have endured over the centuries, despite
technical improvements in glassmaking, which
profound social, technological stylistic change
allowed flat mirrors of a reasonable size to be
– the role of the mirror; the artist as member of
manufactured; the perfection of oil painting as
the gentry, as bohemian, as performer; mortality;
a technique, which allowed artists to capture
with lifelike brilliance the textures of human identity; and the role of the medium of oil paint.
flesh; and the changing status of the artist, from Thousands of painted self-portraits have been
artisan to member of the social and intellectual valued and collected over the years, sometimes
elite, making the individual artist a worthy subject in special collections devoted solely to this kind
for portraiture. of painting. The selection here combines those by
Despite the social, political and technological famous artists with others by less familiar names.
changes throughout the 500 years represented in Single figure self-portraits, often considered to
this exhibition, the self-portrait painted in oils has symbolise creative autonomy, are juxtaposed
remained a vital and enduringly popular form of with paintings depicting the artist in relation to
artistic expression. other figures.
PLAYING WITH MIRRORS The mirror has been central to making ROLE PLAY Every self-portrait painting is a performance of a
self-portraits, and in Renaissance Italy they were referred to as kind. The artist chooses a particular costume and pose, and
‘portraits made in a mirror’. By the 16th century flat glass adopts a persona for his or her audience. For example in Judith
mirrors began to replace convex, circular mirrors made of glass with the head of Holofernes, 1613, Cristofano Allori becomes
or mostly metal; and although expensive, they produced larger, the mask-like image of the beheaded Holofernes, while in
clearer reflections. Centres of production included Venice and Edgas Degas’s Self-portrait of c1863, he poses as a gentleman,
Nuremburg (Albrecht Dürer’s hometown). doffing his hat to the viewer.
Mirrors have remained a key tool in the artist’s studio. Most A mask can show the face or character of someone else,
often in a self-portrait, the mirror becomes invisible, having and is often assumed to conceal the ‘real self’ that lies beneath.
provided the artist with access to his or her image, with the It appears in the self-portraits by Artemisia Gentileschi and
reflection from the mirror supposedly translated onto the Gerrit Dou as a symbol of painting or imitation. However, the
canvas. In looking at the picture we seem to be in the position mask’s capacity to dramatise or conceal character actually
of the artist facing his or her own reflection. Johannes Gumpp’s depends upon a connection between this conventional face
work, however, aims to show the mirror’s symbolic and and the ‘true’ person within.
practical role in the creation of a perfect self-portrait. The There is also a performative element in the making of each
scene is constructed to give the illusion that the viewer can self-portrait in oils. The painting is a fiction, where the final
stand back and see the artist at work, with his image work may suppress or dramatise the processes involved in
apparently reflected in the mirror to the left, and a self-portrait its creation, while still producing a certain record of the artist
in progress on the easel to the right. at work.
Mirrors have been associated with both vanity and self-
knowledge. They can be a means to ‘know thyself’ by BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH The Italian Renaissance theorist Leon
reflecting on virtue and vice. In John Robinson’s Self-portrait Battista Alberti asserted that ‘The face of a man who is already
as a young man with mirror, c1940, the play with mirrors dead lives a long life through painting.’ Portraiture thus has the
is taken a stage further as the self-portrait appears within its almost magical power to endow painted subjects with eternal
frame, its coherence disrupted by the contents of his studio. life. A self-portrait painting also allows viewers to move as if
In Lucian Freud’s Interior with hand mirror (self-portrait), across space and time to gain a strong sense of an artistic
1967, the mirror tucked into the window frame is depicted as personality.
small but central, focusing the viewer’s attention onto the Yet the act of painting a self-portrait is also implicitly about
image of his face. death, anticipating a life beyond the grave and commenting –
sometimes ironically – on the vanity and brevity of human
existence. In painting a self-portrait the artist both captures life
and arrests it. The self-portrait can thus be seen as marking a
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9 SELF PORTRAIT: RENAISSANCE TO CONTEMPORARY EDUCATION KIT AGNSW
DATE TECHNOLOGY AND WORLD HISTORY ART HISTORY
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10 SELF PORTRAIT: RENAISSANCE TO CONTEMPORARY EDUCATION KIT AGNSW
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FRAMING QUESTIONS
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ENTRANCE >
Rudy Komon Gallery
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Upper level exhibition space
The following works from the Art Gallery of New South Wales collection have been chosen
to connect with the eight key themes identified within the exhibition and this education kit.
The questions and activities in this kit can be adapted for use with these artworks from the
Gallery’s collection. They should be considered as starting points for developing connections,
comparisons, contrasts and critical discussions across media, subject matter, techniques and
formal qualities. It is important to remember that many of the works will be relevant to more
than one theme and point of investigation.
These works have been selected due to their accessibility through consistent display within
the Gallery or accessibility through the Prints, Drawings & Photography Study Room.
Alchemy The ancient and medieval Identity The characteristics by which a Reflection A thought or idea formed
chemical practice especially concerned thing, a person, or people are after focused thinking
with the attempt to convert base metals definitively known
Renaissance A revival or rebirth of
into gold
Impasto Thick application of paint to a cultural production and learning that
Allegory When the literal content of a surface took place during the 14th and 15th
work stands for abstract ideas, centuries, particularly in Italy, but also
Metaphor One thing representing
suggesting a parallel, deeper, symbolic in Germany and other European
another; a symbol
sense. countries. The period was characterised
Metamorphosis A transformation from by a renewed interest in ancient Greek
Autobiography A person’s own life
one state of being to another and Roman art and design and included
story written by the person
an emphasis on human beings, their
Middle ground Area between the environment, science, and philosophy
Background Area in a painting that
foreground and the background
appears in the distance
Self-exploration The effort to discover
Miniature Often refers to a small portrait your own character, personality, moods,
Body art Term used to describe art in
painted on paper, ivory, or porcelain motivations, goals, likes, and dislikes
which the body, often that of the artist,
is the principal medium and focus Mirror A surface capable of reflecting Self-portrait The representation of
light to form a virtual image of any oneself in a work of art
Commission The act of hiring someone
object placed in front of it
to execute a certain artwork
Symbol Something – often an object or a
Mirror image An image that is identical representation of an object – that stands
Chiaroscuro A word borrowed from
to another one, except that its parts are for or suggests something else
Italian (‘light and shade’ or ‘dark’)
reversed from left to right, as they would
referring to the modelling of volume by
appear in a mirror Subjectivity Expressions of the
depicting light and shade and
individuality and personal experiences
contrasting them boldly Patron Someone who supports an artist; and perceptions of an artist or author
a sponsor or benefactor
Composition The arrangement of the
Triptych A painting or carving that
elements of art in a work, connected to Perspective The accurate representation typically has three hinged panels, the
the principles of design, as well as to the of distance or depth as viewed by the two outer panels designed so that they
relative emphasis of the composition’s human eye can be folded in towards the central one.
parts
A common form for an altarpiece during
Portrait The representation of a person
Diptych A picture or bas-relief made of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
or a group of people in a work of art
two panels hinged together, often an
Three-quarter The halfway position
altarpiece. Also, any picture consisting Pose Position in which the body is held
between frontal and profile, so that the
of two individual surfaces in place without moving
face and shoulders are seen at an angle
Foreground Area in a painting the Profile Turned to the side so that only
seems closest to the viewer half of face shows
Liz Rideal
Mirror/mirror: self-portraits by women Film/Video
artists. National Portrait Gallery, Caravaggio 1986, directed by Derek
London, 2001 Jarman. A portrait of Caravaggio’s life.
Liz Rideal Love is the devil 1998, directed by John
Insights: self-portrait, National Portrait Maybury. A portrait of Francis Bacon.
Gallery, London, 2005
My architect: a son’s journey 2003,
Robert Sobieszek & Deborah Irmas directed by Nathaniel Kahn.
The camera I: photographic self- A portrait of Louis Kahn by his son.
portraits from the Audrey and Sidney
Vincent 1987, directed by Paul Cox.
Irmas Collection, Los Angeles County
A portrait of Van Gogh’s life.
Museum of Art, Harry N Abrams, Inc.,
New York, 1994 Artemisia 1997, directed by Agnès
Merlet. A portrait of Artemisia
Philip Vann Gentileschi’s life.
Face to face: British self-portraits in the
twentieth century, Sansom & Company, Frida 2002, directed by Julie Taymor.
Bristol, 2004 A portrait of Kahlo’s life.