Every Painter Paints Himself
Every painter paints himself, a saying first documented in the early Renaissance, has been mentioned by artists ever since. Both Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci used it, as Picasso did too; Lucian Freud and other contemporary artists still cite variations today. Yet despite its great significance to artists, art scholars rarely discuss the saying or its meaning. Those who do seem to have no choice but to deny it: painters don’t really paint themselves, they say, but their sensibility. But why would a phrase that meant so much to great masters, and still does to their followers, require re-phrasing to mean anything? The truth is, as this website demonstrates, it is the images of these visual artists that are veiled, not their words.
All Articles (Alphabetical by Artist, then Title)
Learn how Picasso bases an image on the letters of his signature
Picasso’s Musician, Dancer, Goat and Bird (1959)
Learn about the mystery behind Picasso's name and the importance of artist's names in general
Picasso’s Parade (1917) and His Mysterious Name
See how Picasso uses YO to symbolize a girl and a bull as apsects of himself
Picasso’s Portrait of a Girl and a Bull
See how Picasso in "copying" a portrait changes it into an image of his own thought process
Picasso’s Portrait of Gongora (1947)
Not a particularly successful picture but an excellent learning tool
Picasso’s Portrait of Jacqueline (1965)
There is always more in Picasso than meets the eye
Picasso’s Reclining Nude with Man and Bird (1971)
Never forget the importance of an artist's hand. It can pop up anywhere.
Picasso’s Reclining Nude, Fernande (1906)
How a seated harlequin is so much more than a seated harlequin
Picasso’s Seated Harlequin with Red Background (1905)
Picasso must have learnt early on that great artists often adopt the persona of earlier great artists....
Picasso’s Self-Portrait (late1901)
Genres are an artificial classification of little meaning. For instance, as here, still-life without life would be still-born.
Picasso’s Still-Life with Door, Guitar and Bottles (1916)
Learn how Picasso used swords as "paintbrushes", "etching needles" and other tools of the trade
Picasso’s Swords and Knives
Picasso at his most abstract is still figurative in ways that have never been seen
Picasso’s The Kitchen (1948)
Yet more evidence that the adolescent Picasso understood the self-referential paradigm of art
Picasso’s The Last Bull (1892)
Learn how Picasso used another artist's name to represent his own identification with the great masters of the past
Picasso’s Three Actors (1933)
Hear how Karen Kleinfelder interprets Picasso's scene
Picasso’s Untitled Plate 58 from Suite 156 (1971)
Just like Michelangelo's, Picasso's women are masculine too....here's how and why.
Picasso’s Woman in an Armchair (1948)
Ignore the title of a painting; they can lead you far astray
Picasso’s Woman with Clasped Hands (1907)
Don't accept your first understanding of a line. Think again; because artists do before drawing it.
Picasso’s Women on the Beach (1947)
See how Picasso writes his own identity over someone else's face
Picasso’s YO’s in Piero Crommelynck (1966-71)
A resurrection by its very name suggests two realities: the old and the new, the illusory and the real.
Piero della Francesca’s Resurrection (c.1458)
See how an Impressionist painting is really constructed
Pissarro’s View of the Tuileries. Morning (1900)
Even the Grand Tour's principal portraitist, Pompeo Batoni, used face fusion
Pompeo Batoni’s Portrait of a Gentleman in a red coat (c.1758-9)
How the four evangelists are really, in the artist's mind, draughtsmen
Pontormo’s and Bronzino’s Evangelists (1525-8)
See the miraculous head of Christ in Poussin's painting that no-one but artists has ever noted. The painting is up for sale next week with an estimate of $30 million.
Poussin’s Ordination (1640’s)
We have seen elsewhere how artists use the arrows of St. Sebastian, the saint's identifying attribute, as symbols for their own paintbrushes.
Raphael’s Galatea (1512)
New revelations, as always, about one of the world's most famous portraits
Raphael’s La Donna Velata (c.1516)
Beware of biographical stories trying to explain a great portrait; they are rarely, if ever, true.
Raphael’s La Fornarina (1518-20)
How even the young Raphael depicted the divinity of the artist's mind
Raphael’s Saint Sebastian (c.1502-3)
Sometimes the most difficult features to see in art are the most obvious
Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, Part 1 (1512)
Even simple sketches can be pregnant with meaning
Raphael’s Studies after Michelangelo’s David (1507-8)
The pose in this portrait by Raphael, with the head turned upwards and away, has been described as a type suggesting that the Pope's secretary is listening to or witnessing divine revelation.
Raphael’s Tommaso Inghirami (c. 1511)
Still-lifes by great artists may seem simple or devoid of meaning, especially when compared to figure paintings, but they rarely are either simple or meaningless.
Redon’s Pavots et Oeillets de Poète… (c.1906)
How Rembrandt used gold chains as a symbol of the high honor due to him as a great master
Rembrandt and the Artist’s Gold Chain
How realism and the use of models fools the eyes. Art, one must remember, is never 'real' and never 'photographic'.
Rembrandt’s A Bearded Man in a Cap (1657)
See how Rembrandt turned an anatomy lesson into a scene in his studio (in his mind).
Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp (1632)
How the setting is so rarely what you think....you must think differently
Rembrandt’s Bathsheba at Her Bath (1643)
See the sight which changes the meaning of all Rembrandt's art: Rembrandt is Christ
Rembrandt’s Crucifixion (1631)
See how Joseph is an artist staring at his work of art inside the artist's head
Rembrandt’s Holy Family with a Cat (1654)
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