EPPH - Every Painter Paints Himself

Artists paint themselves as God. Why has no-one noticed?

For nearly twenty years EPPH has revealed that major art is categorically different from lesser art. They should not both be called “art”. Major art always looks inwards at the individual artist, an interior vision of their mind which accounts for why so many portrait sitters resemble the artist.

Over the past four years I have worked on a particular issue which demonstrates this even more dramatically: at least 49 Renaissance artists depicted themselves as Christ and, even more surprisingly, as God the Father. They include masters as varied as Jan van Eyck, Botticelli, Leonardo, Caravaggio, Rubens, and Velazquez. This tradition, which lasted for 600 years, has never been seen except by artists, and raises serious questions about art history and how it is taught. In an article, just published in the online, peer-reviewed journal Arts, I explain how for theological and artistic reasons, the artists had no choice. Despite the risks involved, they had to paint themselves as God. There was no other way.

You can access the article for free at https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13050158 . It is titled ‘The Unseen Truth of God in Early Modern Art.’

And, if you have comments, do drop me a line.