EPPH - Every Painter Paints Himself

This self-portrait of Titian as one of the apostles, writing instrument in hand, clearly suggests that the pen is but a substitute for the brush. And just as vision can mistake the act of writing for drawing so can language. An Italian dictionary published in 1612 records that the word stile means a painter's brush, a writer's pen and the personal style of the painter.¹

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Even in an engraving after a lost self-portrait we do not know whether Titian is writing on the tablet or drawing though, given the tablet's upright position, the scene strongly suggests the latter.

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Now in this more complex composition of Georges d'Armagnac with His Secretary we can imagine the secretary "drawing" his boss. That is why his figure seems more alive than that of his master who like the nude in Manet's Olympia looks flat. Immobile and seemingly unaware of his secretary's presence, Georges D'Armagnac is "a painting." No wonder, then, that both bearded men bear some resemblance to the bearded Titian.

Writing in truly poetic art is often a substitute for drawing. For, just as writers like Balzac and Wilde have used painters as an alter ego in their stories, so painters use writers in their art. The only difference is that while painters know what writers do, few writers understand painting.