num_pages: 288
description: This broad cultural history of self-portraiture brilliantly maps the history of the genre from the earliest myths of Narcissus and the Christian tradition of bearing witness to the prolific self-image-making of today's contemporary artists. Focusing on a perennially popular subject the book tells the vivid history of works that offer insights into artists' personal psychological and creative worlds. Topics include the importance of the medieval mirror craze in early self-portraiture; the confessional self-portraits of Titian and Michelangelo; the mystique of the artist's studio from Vermeer to Velazquez; the role of biography and geography for serial self-portraitists such as Courbet and Van Gogh; the multiple selves of modern and contemporary artists such as Cahun and Sherman; and recent developments in the era of globalization. Comprehensive and beautifully illustrated the book features the work of a wide range of artists including Beckmann Caravaggio Durer Gentileschi Ghiberti Giotto Goya Kahlo Kauffman Magritte Mantegna Picasso Poussin Raphael Rembrandt and Van Eyck. The full range of the subject is explored including comic and caricature self-portraits invented or imaginary self-portraits and important collections of self-portraiture such as that of the Medici.
language: English
title: The Self-Portrait: A Cultural History
publisher: Thames & Hudson