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.

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Despite everything you have ever heard about art Every painter paints himself is the underlying principle of great art since at least the Renaissance and probably before. To artists and thinkers in the Renaissance, the human body was a microcosm of the universe and it was widely believed that the secrets of God’s creation could be found inside us. That is why both Michelangelo and Leonardo dissected corpses, breaking the law in the process. They were searching inside for the secrets of Creation and the cosmos.

Now forget almost everything you have ever been told about the visual arts. Great art is not, and has never been, a depiction of the exterior world. True artists never intended that, even if their patrons expected it. It would have been mere copying of nature. Regardless of initial appearances, all poetic art is an allegory of the artist’s own mind in the process of creation, and thus an allegory in miniature of God’s own creation. That is why ‘know yourself’ in a broader context is the motto of all mystics. Not everyone can see this, though, because as in difficult poetry, the true meaning of great art is hidden. The French painter Eugene Delacroix wrote “the eyes of many people are dull or false; they see objects literally, of the exquisite they see nothing.” Other masters have made similar remarks. If you change your perception, though, and stop imagining falsely that art is an early form of photography, the scene itself will change from a depiction of the exterior world to that of the artist’s own mind. The process is similar to how a Shakespearean play is mere entertainment for groundlings on one level while also providing, on a higher plane, an allegorical illustration of the poet’s own mind in the process of creation. Literary critics George Steiner and Elizabeth Sacks have each separately shown how. The same has been written of Dante’s Commedia.

The problem in art, going back to antiquity, is everyday vision. While we all know that words can be read on multiple levels, we do not grasp easily how sight can be too. We think that what we see is “fact” though our minds use just a tiny selection of the visual data they receive to create a scene of our own making. As humans we have much in common and thus see much alike but the differences can also be major as jurors soon discover. We each paint our own visual “reality” as a reflection of what we already know. Thus artists, learning this from each other’s art, do likewise and paint an allegorical view of their own mind with each figure as a specific alter ego. It is a traditional concept commonly accepted in literature that only the illusion of visual reality prevents us from seeing in art.

Once you know that every painter paints himself, every masterpiece of Western art has the potential to change before your eyes. Discover here some of the techniques that artists have long used to convey this and your perception of art will improve as dramatically as your enjoyment of it will also increase.

All Articles (Alphabetical by Artist, then Title)

Michelangelo's first great masterpiece is widely misunderstood. Like art in general, it is an expression of the creative moment.

Michelangelo’s Vatican Pieta (1498-99)

Millet’s La Cardeuse (1855-6)

Discover how you can unlock layers of meaning from a relatively simple composition

Millet’s The Angelus (1857-9) and other works

How even though Miró appeared to stop signing his works, he never did.

Miró‘s Birds in Space (1946)

One way to make sense of Miró's abstractions is to remember, as ever, that 'every painter paints himself.'

Miró‘s Drawing-Collage (1933)

Miró's variations on his name inspired one image after another, all unseen until now. Take a look.

Miró‘s Name in Miró‘s Art (1937-69)

See how Miró wrote his name in large letters across his canvas yet left his viewers blind

Miró‘s Painting (1933)

Miró's inventive and individualistic style, however modern, is merely a complement to his deep traditionalism. And that's as it should be.

Miró‘s Painting / The Circus Horse (1927)

Discover yet another example of how Miró's composition is based on his own name

Miró‘s Potato (1928)

If a self-portrait was collected by Picasso as this one was, there must be a reason beyond remembrance. It's our job to find out what.

Miró‘s Self-portrait (1919)

Miró‘s Umbrella (1901)

Look out for Miro's name in art; it's often there

Miró‘s Woman and Bird in front of the Moon (1944)

Consistency is often the hallmark of a great artist. This drawing by the 17-year old Miró is a remarkable demonstration of it.

Miró‘s The Podiatrist (1901)

Was Monet's mind full of oceanic mysteries?

Monet’s Au Bord du Fjord, près Christiania (1895)

Is landscape portraiture? Monet clearly thinks so.

Monet’s Camille Monet in the Garden at Argenteuil (1876)

Underneath the architecture of Monet's cathedrals is a major surprise

Monet’s Rouen Cathedral (1892-4)

Did Morandi ever paint a still-life? I doubt it. Here's why….

Morandi’s Still-Life (1926)

Discover how a contemporary artist helps explain the Old Masters

Morimura’s Mother (Judith) Series

How a much-maligned artist knows far more than his critics

Mueck’s A Girl (2006)

Like scripture, there are two ways to view a landscape: externally and internally. See how...

Munch’s Coastal Landscape (1918)

Even for modern artists, creation was a sacred activity

Munch’s Old Man Praying (1902)

Did you know that....? There's so much to see for the first time, even in the most familiar images

Munch’s The Scream (1895)

Even contemporary artists follow the masters….

Nares’ Road Paint (2013)

The theme of an executioner with a decapitated head as a visual metaphor for a painter continues to this day.

Norbert Bisky’s Youths with Decapitated Heads (2006-08)

Many were scandalized by this painting in the 1990's yet still missed the "real" scandal!

Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary (1996)

What can you make of an eaten apple?

Oldenburg’s Apple Core (1992)

How yet another artist makes sense of Manet's Olympia

Oldenburg’s Pat, Lying as Olympia (1959)

Learn how a common pose in art carries specific meaning, regardless of subject matter

Over-the-Shoulder Poses

Keeping alert to differences in style within a painting can help unlock its meaning

Parmigianino’s Allegorical Portrait of Emperor Charles V (1529-30)

More evidence that an illusionistic portrait is not necessarily a depiction of what we normally see

Parmigianino’s Man with a Book (1523-4) with works by Titian and Michelangelo too

Indian art though always separated from Western art, in both museums and scholarship, may have more in common with it than ever thought before.

Payag’s Shah Jahan Riding a Stallion (c.1628)

Peale's American portraits have more in common with great European art than is generally accepted.

Peale’s Portrait of George Washington (c.1780)

Peale’s The Artist in His Museum (1822)

Artists not only feel at one with nature; they become one with nature

Perugino and Stubbs as Lions

In this early painting of St. Sebastian by Perugino the artist signed his name as though it was the arrow: "Opus Peruginus Pinxit."

Perugino’s Bust of St. Sebastian (1493)

Find out why so many of Perugino's faces look alike

Perugino’s Madonna and Child (n.d.) and Mary Magdalene (1500)

One of the earliest self-portraits in stone is based on the likeness of the king, or vice versa

Peter Parler’s Self-Portrait (c.1370-79)

"Genius" is derided nowadays in academia but, if there is no such thing, how did a 13-year old Picasso know what art historians never have?

Picasso’s A Gentleman Greeting a Lady (1894-5)

One of the young Picasso's masterpieces, still a puzzle

Picasso’s Boy Leading a Horse (1906)

Learn how Picasso turns a model into himself

Picasso’s Boy with a Pipe (1905)

It may seem simple but it's still art

Picasso’s Bull’s Head (1942)

"Picasso" paints from the other side of the image using a cigarette for a brush

Picasso’s Bust of a Man with a Cigarette (1964)

Two protagonists in one painting must both represent the artist. It's a given in art so it's your job to find out how.

Picasso’s Cat Catching a Bird (1939)

How Picasso imagines himself through his own child

Picasso’s Claude Writing (1951)

See how what looks like a unified scene is really divided

Picasso’s Dancer and Picador (1960)

Learn to recognize the letters of Picasso's signature, a key to many of his works

Picasso’s Faun Flutist (1947)

Here is a very obvious example of one artist's identification with another

Picasso’s Female Nude in Profile 〈1902〉

When you discover what is underneath Picasso's early Blue Period paintings, the meaning changes...drastically.

Picasso’s Harlequin (1901) and Blue Period

Don't forget negative spaces....they too can hold content.

Picasso’s Head of a Woman (1960)

How we know that the young Picasso knew his destiny

Picasso’s Head of Picador with Broken Nose (1903)

Learn how to use double-vision, a critical tool for interpretation

Picasso’s In the Sculptor’s Studio (1963)

Learn how the young Picasso played around with several themes in a relatively simple composition

Picasso’s La Toilette (1906)

Picasso turned the face of a Spanish queen into a townscape by fusing the two

Picasso’s Le Vert-Galant (1943)

See how what looks outside is really inside

Picasso’s Man Looking in a Mirror (1969)

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