30 Dec 2024
A Surprising Revelation of Divinity in Art
There are certain findings that should make all art lovers, including art scholars, think twice about whether we understand art. I have just published an in-depth article on how at least 49 Renaissance artists from all over Europe depicted themsel
07 Nov 2024
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
23 Oct 2014
The Male Artist and His Female Muse
Mona Lisa was Leonardo’s muse and he kept the portrait with him until his death. The beautiful, semi-nude La Fornarina was Raphael’s. Titian’s muse and Palma Vecchio’s are both called Beautiful or La Bella in Italian. Parmigianino’s is
06 Oct 2014 | 1 Comments
Dürer, Titian, Art and Blasphemy
For those who have trouble - I certainly did - understanding how artists like Dürer (top) and Titian (below) could have portrayed themselves as Christ, here is a poem attributed to an 11th-century spiritual master of the Greek Orthodox Church
26 Nov 2013 | 2 Comments
Tips to Tell Art from Illustration
My definition of art, as I've said before, is not as wide as that used by the public and most scholars. I do not believe, for instance, that children create art nor the vast majority of adult painters. True artists paint themselves; they paint i
23 Mar 2013
Drawings as Ideas in the Mind
Concepto, concetto, esemplo, modello. Michael Cole and Mary Pardo, writing about the studio in the Italian Renaissance, have pointed out that the terms artists then used for a working drawing, what we today might call a sketch or study, were the
14 Jun 2012
“Sir, rejoice with me, I have become God.”
The Inner Tradition in Christianity, the idea that Scripture and Christ’s teachings are allegorical in nature, is so little known that its impact on art has not been properly addressed. Those following the tradition know that God, as described
02 Apr 2012
Villard de Honnecourt’s Commentary on Life and God
Vassily Kandinsky was not just thinking of his own abstract works when he wrote that: "The greatest mistake one can make is to believe that Art is the reproduction of Nature."1 He was referring to all Art. I agree, as many of you know, but I arg
13 Mar 2012
Titian as Raphael
I've just added an entry on a little-known but very intriguing portrait by Titian, known simply as Titian's Portrait of a Gentleman. Painted around 1520, it is, I believe, Titian's tribute to the recently-deceased Raphael. Hanging in the Palazzo
03 Mar 2012
How and Why Artists Steal
“It’s not always good to have ideas. Some people have a gift for coming up with ideas. But for those that don’t it is a real struggle. Oddly,” Paul Arden writes in his latest guide for creative wannabes, “the
10 Feb 2012
Titian’s Danae..a “new” self-portrait
I've found a clearer image of Titian's own face, a previously unseen self-portrait, made from the clouds in his Prado Danae. You can see the tip of his nose in the center of this image, his far eye quite clearly indicated above it and sl
09 Feb 2012
The Artist as Creative God
The idea within esoteric Christianity that God is our innermost self, the universal self that we all share, has inspired many Western artists over the centuries to depict themselves as God in the process of creation. The ceiling of the Sistine C
31 Jan 2012
Hollywood and the Man Within My Head
I’m always intrigued on perusing The Times Book Review by how many articles explain the object of their study in terms similar to those used here. It is no coincidence, of course. Every painter paints himself and all it entails is probably
30 Nov 2011
The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini
On December 21st the Metropolitan Museum, New York, will be opening an exhibition titled The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini. As long-time users know, the whole idea behind this site and its blog is that art, especially Renaissanc
17 Oct 2011
Delacroix on Color and Line
Writers on art once believed that Raphael and the School of Rome privileged line and contour whereas Titian and the Venetian School worshipped color, thereby making the overall palette and tonality of Venetian pictures in the Renaissance more si
30 Jul 2011 | 1 Comments
Titian is a dog
Some viewers remain convinced that artists subconsciously fused their features into their portraits of other people - as Leonardo misleadingly suggested - even though the evidence is now strong that face fusion was practiced consciously and with
27 Apr 2011
Ratatouille and the Great Masters (of all genders)
What do Raphael’s La Fornarina and Ratatouille have in common? Much more than you might think, their superficial differences disguising their fundamental similarity. The idea that significant art depicts a moment of its own making within t
25 Apr 2011
Face Recognition
Organizing family photos is not my thing; can never get around it; and rarely look at them either. That is by way of explaining why my first brush with face recognition software was the above request from IPhoto to explain my relationship
22 Apr 2011
Titian as God
There's a whole new theme at Every Painter Paints Himself and one I've been looking forward to because more than any other theme on the site it demonstrates how artists followed the various traditions of mystical Christianity and not the
18 Mar 2011
Face Fusion is Everywhere
For years I’ve been rattling on about face fusion to demonstrate that portraits by true artists are not what they seem. Many are not accurate depictions but a fusion of features from different faces, often the artist’s own. Salvador Dali, fo
The EPPH Blog features issues and commentary.
