For many centuries, people practiced and reached heights in the visual arts, transferring what the eyes see and the soul feels to stone and canvas. Statues of kings and rulers, people who lived in ancient times, engravings, painted walls, paintings, even cave paintings return us to the distant past and allow us to absorb the knowledge accumulated over millennia. Such creations of art help scientists restore the history of our world, learn more about human psychology and its development.
Art as part of life
Human nature is prone to curiosity, often people ask numerous questions about the types and genres of art. Many people want to learn new things, from how art began to answers to the questions “what is a self-portrait?” And “how is a sculpture created?”. But you should start small, finding answers gradually.
Types of art
Among the types of artistic creativity are distinguished:
- painting;
- sculpture;
- a photograph;
- schedule;
- arts and crafts.
Art genres
Each type of art has its own genres, such as portrait, landscape or still life in painting. Other genres are also distinguished: historical, symbolic, allegorical, mythological, everyday, battle (military), religious. All these types of art include numerous varieties, for example, in the genre of landscape - marine painting, the image of the sea. The portrait involves a large number of varieties: historical, religious, costume and self-portrait.
Self portrait - a mystery of the portrait genre
Self-portrait is not only a genre of fine art. It is available to musicians, writers, poets. When answering the question of what self-portrait is in art, you need to understand that the phenomenon of this genre itself lies in the desire for self-knowledge, a side view of your own "I". In almost any activity, you can display your personality, which will relate the work to this genre. It is difficult to answer the question "what is a self-portrait?". The definition of this genre is not as clear as it seems. The answer to such a simple, but at the same time complex question is to find the cause of this type of work.
Self-portrait is an image of the author himself. Contrary to popular belief, this is not only a
genre of painting, but also sculptures, graphics and photographs. Often authors, portraying themselves on canvas or carving out of stone, used a mirror, as it was before the appearance and wide distribution of cameras. After that, it became easier to create a self-portrait, it was enough to capture yourself and work on a photograph. Some figures decided not to go that far and also turned the intermediate stage of photography into a kind of art.
What is a self portrait?
Art historians have long sought and studied the answer to the question "what is a self-portrait?". The meaning of this term consists of two parts: “auto”, which means “author”, and “portrait” - an image of a person. Real artists always put their souls and inspiration into their work, strive to convey to the public not only a visual image, but also their thoughts and feelings. As mentioned earlier, a self-portrait is a portrait in which artists and sculptures depict themselves. When a person paints himself, he tries to transfer not only appearance, facial features and body build to the material, he tries to give personality to his own image. It has long been known that we do not perceive our reflection as others see it from the outside. So the artist and the sculptor, evaluating himself on the other, more critical side, portrays himself as he sees it. This fact makes it possible not only to enjoy the masterpieces of the most famous creative people, but also to evaluate the work from a psychological point of view.
Types of self-portrait in painting
In search of an answer to the question of what self-portrait is in painting, let us turn to its varieties.
A self-portrait is called a work in which the artist places himself in a group of people in a picture, often without playing a major role in it.
In a group artist, he also draws himself among several people, but they are relatives or friends, and the work itself was created to preserve the moments of life in memory.
A symbolic self-portrait can be made in the historical, mythological or costume genre . The author of the picture adds the features of his face to the character of a story or mythology or simply “dresses up” himself in other clothes.
A natural self portrait is closest to the original. On it, the artist depicts himself alone in a home or work environment.
The natural self-portrait is also divided into several varieties:
- Professional - the artist portrays himself at work in the workshop.
- Personal - the author’s transfer to the picture of his state of mind, the desire to show not appearance, but emotions.
- Erotic.
Self portrait psychology
A self-portrait is an artist’s assessment of his personality. The first works of this genre date back to 420 BC, a mention of them was found in the history of Ancient Greece and Egypt. But then the authors did not individualize themselves, they painted important historical events, and placed themselves on images as an integral part of history. Often this did not meet the understanding of the audience. So, the sculptor Phidias once portrayed himself among the participants in the “Battle of the Amazons,” which, as the ancient Greek philosopher Plutarch noted, was an extreme daring. This genre gained the greatest popularity in the Renaissance, but even then creating an image of oneself was considered eccentric, because such works at that time were considered narcissistic. Critics claimed that the authors immortalized themselves for fame.
The creative person thinks differently, so it will be true to say that from a psychological point of view, the artist or sculptor is different from the rest. There were artists in history who suffered from neurological and mental illnesses. Self-portraits that were made by them are still being studied in search of a clue to the secrets of the person.
In ancient art, these works did not attach much importance, but in the following centuries the goal of artists began to be traced - to leave in memory not only your image, but also personal impressions of those times. For example, when religion caused the greatest excitement in people, the authors considered it most appropriate to portray themselves in repentance, spiritual aspiration, and prayer.
In the Renaissance, the heyday of culture, the work of famous masters began to acquire symbolic features. A lot of drama and emotional experiences appeared in their writings. Michelangelo presented the features of his face to a mask-skin, removed from the sinner, and the severed head of Goliath.
Most popular self portraits
Surely many come to mind the famous self-portraits of artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Van Gogh or Frida Calo. The history of fine art has hundreds of authors who left a memory of themselves in painting, writing their own portraits. Albrecht Durer was one of the first artists to choose the self-portrait genre as central in his work. He painted 50 paintings with his image. However,
Frida Kahlo took away his palm in the number of self-portraits created, on her account there are 55. Sometimes, Rembrandt is referred to the record holders for painting with his own image. His works of this genre, there are about 90 pieces. Most of them, however, are actually made by other artists, and some of the paintings are unimaginably small in size (the smallest of them is 17 by 20 cm).
Italian artists Giotto, Mazzacho and Botticelli included their own images in their work. It is even suggested that the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci "Mona Lisa" is also a self-portrait of the master, only in a female body.
There are not so many sculptural self-portraits; basically, their creation falls on the present time. Mark Quinn, who created a series of sculptures depicting the author, and Konenkov Sergey, whose work can be seen in the Tretyakov Gallery, are considered one of the
famous sculptors .
A self-portrait is not only creating yourself from stone or by transferring paints to canvas, but also the genre of photography. The most popular name for this genre is familiar to many - a selfie or "photograph of yourself" made with outstretched hands or with the help of a mirror.