EPPH - Every Painter Paints Himself

Letters in the Art of All Periods

There are certain long-lived traditions within the history of art-making that, if known, add immeasurably to the viewer's interest and understanding. Among them is the subtle metamorphic inclusion of the artist's initials, one of the many little-known methods of self-representation so important to art. In this painting of St Jerome by Antonio da Fabriano (active mid-15th-century) the biblical translator is not only writing letters; he is one. He's the artist's initial. His triangular form describes a large A for Antonio and is dated like a signature on the crossbar-edge of the tabletop.

Two decades later Martin Schongauer (1445-1491) whose monogram can be seen at bottom gave this griffin his own identity. The three legs form an M with the head and neck as an S, linked by the raised claw which resembles in turn the ampersand of his signature (enlarged detail, inset in green).¹  

Albrecht Dürer who greatly admired Schongauer is known to have played with his initials in various ways. In this example, his monogram of a D nestled inside an A is prominently displayed on the tree trunk. Replicating it, the Virgin forms the A of Albrecht while the infant Christ's curved torso is nestled against her body and inside the A.

Lucas van Leyden (1494-1533), a Dutch engraver signed with his initial, L, again at bottom.  Here the flagpole and soldier's arm are L-shaped.²  

At the time Lucas was lettering his figures in Northern Europe, Raphael was doing likewise in Rome. His Sistine Madonna is formed into an R just as he placed R's, or even his whole name, on portraits of women.

And that same year in Northern Italy, Lorenzo Lotto placed an inverted L in the hilt and blade of Judith's sword (top L) just as he surreptitiously placed L's in other paintings too. The handle of Christ's predestined coffin (top R) is purposely L-shaped as are the artificially-posed arms of Angel Gabriel and the Virgin, and the exaggerated stretch of Christ's hand on the Cross (bottom row, L to R). He could have made the arm positions look naturally L-shaped but their slight oddness would suggest to other artists the presence of a subtext. And do note how all these L's are linked to arms and hands as symbols of Lotto's craft, even the handles of the sword and coffin.

Pieter Aertsen, a Dutch artist, followed the same tradition. Two paintings from the 1560's clearly depict his initials, PA. In this detail, the logs, kindling and basket spell AP in the lower right portion of the picture.

And in this example, another detail, the loose twine hanging from either side of the bird-basket spells AP again. All art, according to the EPPH paradigm, takes place in the artist's mind so the inversion of his names like the inverted L of Lotto's sword may refer to the mind as a mirror.. 

In 18th-century London William Hogarth painted himself at an easel in a rather conventional composition. However in including his initials so effortlessly, it is instead a minor miracle. Below the easel is a W for William and above an H for Hogarth. He may be depicting the comic muse but it is an allegory for how the muse is inside his mind, held between his two initials. Hogarth, like the others, is painting himself.

Fast forward a century and Henri Daumier's cartoons, though comical, are serious. This is not the place to explain how but you can read about that in other entries on Daumier. Here the sword's hilt is his own initial just as Lotto's hilt was (given the traditional metaphor of sword-as-paintbrush). Note how the sword's sheath traces a line downwards to Daumier's signature in the lower left corner, linking the two.

I don't have a better-quality image of the print but the king's yawning mouth is also a D which means Daumier-as-officer paints Daumier-as-king with his sword/paintbrush.

Eugène Delacroix is believed to have drawn this watercolor on an 1832 trip to North Africa yet even in painting Arab life, he painted himself. The spear and bags in the lower right-hand corner near where signatures often go spell E and D. 

Such incidental still-lifes often refer to the artist's tools and can be seen as resting on the surface of the paper. However he also included a second E and D in the scene itself, an E poorly integrated into the landscape with a D in the opening of the Arab's sleeve, once again associated with an arm or hand, just like the spear and bags  below, both with handles.

Victor Hugo, one of the few great writers with the potential to have become a great artist too, clearly knew the tradition. None too subtly, he turned the shadow of the acrobat and his chair into a V above and H below. This is the only image in this post that has been previously recognized for its letter-content.

There is no question that artists, like us, can become aware of this tradition by looking long and hard at canonical art but what about a young adolescent in the provinces, far from a good museum. At age 14 Pablo Picasso, then known as Pablo Ruiz, drew a man greeting a lady. He's a P; she's an R. Turning figures and objects into letters became, as for other artists, one of their many ways to convey that every painter paints himself.

In his 1911 masterpiece Red Studio, Henri Matisse placed an empty chair and sculpture stand on the right-hand side. Not surprisingly, given that empty chairs usually signify the artist and sculpture-stands always do, both are formed into letters, an H and M, as shown in the diagram at far right.

Grant Wood in the mid-twentieth century placed his initial, large and bold, in the middle of an American masterpiece. The tines of the pitchfork in American Gothic spell W for Wood while his traditional signature is on the denim clothing of the man holding it. In addition, not only are the buildings behind made out of wood but Wood painted on a board of wood fiber. 

Around the same time Juan Miró painted a painting called Painting. Thought to be entirely abstract, it really spells M I R Ó from bottom left to right top, as you can see in the small details below. The Ó has its accent while the R echoes the R of his signature (bottom).

And our last artist from the era of Pop, Claes Oldenburg, hardly ever creates a work of art without an O in it as these six examples help show.

Even in his wonderful self-portrait wearing an ice-bag, he still put an O on his head.

The metamorphic inclusion of an artist's initial is so common within the discipline of art-making that no interpretation can be considered complete without awareness of it.

1. For other examples by Martin Schongauer, see Adoration of the Magi and Christ Carrying the Cross.

2. To find out more about Lucas van Leyden's Sword-Bearer, see entry.