The Reincarnation of Great Masters
L. to R.: Manet, Copy after Self-Portrait by Filippino Lippi ; Britto, Engraving after Self-Portrait by Titian (now lost); Manet, Self-Portrait in Skull-Cap
Two recent entries, Manet's Croquet at Boulogne on the website and his Copy of Tintoretto's Self-Portrait posted on this blog, have both discussed the feeling, quite common among great artists, that they are reincarnations of one another. I see it all the time in the paintings themselves (eg. the link between the skull-caps above) and occasionally in recorded quotes too. Here's a comment by Larry Rivers that I just happened on:
“As I saw it, I was an artist in a drama about the history of art. I made the appropriate gestures; I played the role of connector from caveman artist up through the present. You name them, I was them.”1
1. Memorial Address, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Sept. 16th, 1981, cited in Barbara Rose, “Larry Rivers: Painter of Modern Life” in Rose and Jacquelyn Days Serwer, Larry Rivers: Art and Artist (Washington, DC: Corcoran Gallery of Art) 2002, p. 47
Posted 08 Nov 2010: Artist as Another ArtistManetRivers, LarryTintoretto
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