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)

Learn how a landscape can be the artist too

Rembrandt’s Landscape with a Stone Bridge (1638)

See how Rembrandt concisely expresses the underlying idea of art in a Roman myth

Rembrandt’s Lucretia (1666)

Several clues, easy to spot, reveal the true underlying meaning of two similar masterpieces

Rembrandt’s Man in Armour (1655) and Minerva (c.1655)

Find out why people pee on etchings

Rembrandt’s Man Making Water (1631) and Woman Making Water and Defecating (1631)

Learn about other methods Rembrandt used to convey his message

Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Young Woman (1632)

This painting which depicts Rembrandt crucifying Christ is an excellent example of the alternative way to read art, not viewing it as an illustration but as poetry.

Rembrandt’s Raising of the Cross (c.1633)

It can be difficult to explain why Rembrandt portrayed himself as a beggar. Here's what I think...

Rembrandt’s Self-portrait as A Beggar Seated on a Bank (1630)

Learn how to look and what to look for, and how touching is painting

Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait with Saskia (c.1635)

If you didn't know that EPPH, you would never understand this image….nor would anyone else.

Rembrandt’s The Hog (1643)

Sometimes the simplest images are the most fascinating

Rembrandt’s The Skater (c.1631)

How Rembrandt's method, and that of great artists in general, is present in his earliest extant painting

Rembrandt’s The Stoning of St. Stephen (1625)

How there is more to a landscape by Rembrandt than meets the eye

Rembrandt’s The Three Trees (1643)

The presence of a mystery in an artwork, intentionally made mysterious by the artist, does not mean that the mystery cannot be solved. Mysteries are made to be resolved.

Rembrandt’s Woman with the Arrow (1661)

An essential question about any picture: does the figure resemble an artist at work?

Rembrandt’s Young Woman Leaning Against a Door (1657)

How a Renaissance artist used an optical illusion to convey meaning

Remenschneider’s Three Helper Saints (c.1500-05)

Discover a common way how artists demonstrate their identity with their protagonist. You can use the method to interpret other paintings by other artists.

Reni’s David with the Head of Goliath (1605)

If you like Renoir but can't see Raphael, you won't see Renoir's Raphael

Renoir’s Dance in the Country (1883)

It's a hidden truth in art: landscapes are never landscapes

Renoir’s Le Cannet (1902)

Look out for letters, even in this view of a bridge...

Renoir’s Pont Neuf, Paris (1872)

See how Monet became Renoir

Renoir’s Portrait of Monet (1875)

Once you see how Norman Rockwell, the so-called illustrator, turned contemporary politics into a contemplation on the creative process, you should start to appreciate how ageless the theme is.

Rockwell’s Before and After (1958)

Romney’s The Clavering Children (1777-8)

The Inner Tradition as practised by a Catholic artist....

Rouault’s Miserere: Eternally Scourged (1922)

See how Rubens turned a variation on a Leonardo composition into a scene of creative struggle in his own mind

Rubens’ Battle of the Standard (c.1600) after Leonardo

Looking at how one great master copies another is a useful lesson in seeing the meaning in art

Rubens’ Copy of Caravaggio’s Entombment (1612-14)

Learn how one artist copies another and makes it his own

Rubens’ Copy of Titian’s Charles V in Armor with a Drawn Sword (c.1603)

See how Rubens' own face is veiled behind a drawing of a forest path

Rubens’ Forest Path (n.d.), a drawing

All art depicts the artist's mind. Here's one way you can see it.

Rubens’ Miracles of St. Ignatius of Loyola (c.1619)

Learn how a mythological scene represents the anatomy of the brain/mind

Rubens’ Perseus Freeing Andromeda (c. 1622)

How a man becomes a template for a woman

Salvator Rosa’s Lucrezia (c.1641)

A helpful and revealing interpretation by Mary Pardo

Savoldo’s Mary Magdalene (c1535-40)

In photographs taken with a macro lens, showing an object in extreme close-up, it can be difficult to recognize the subject. It is the same in painting. However, if you know it's a close-up, it's easier.

Schiele’s Bare Tree Behind a Fence (1912)

Don't take portraits at face value. If they're art, there's always more to them.

Schiele’s Portrait of a Lady in an Orange Hat (1910)

In the epistle of an apostle, the letters matter; as they also do in the self-portrait of a prophet, even if self-proclaimed.

Schiele’s Self-portrait as a Saint (1913)

In a poster for an exhibition of his paintings (above) Egon Schiele drew on the age-old tradition of presenting St. Sebastian as a symbol for the artist himself suffering the pangs of artistic creation.

Schiele’s Self-portrait as Saint Sebastian (1914-15)

How even in the 15th century an artist thought of himself as Christ...and said so.

Schongauer’s Christ Carrying the Cross (c.1475)

In Martin Schongauer’s woodcut of St. George and the Dragon, the monster is an alter ego of the artist. Or, at least he represents an aspect of the artist’s mind.

Schongauer’s St. George and the Dragon (c.1480)

Keep an eye out for the animals in religious scenes

Signorelli’s Adoration of the Shepherds (c.1496)

Signorelli’s Circumcision (c.1490)

Look at art from every which way you can. You never know what you might see.

Signorelli’s Virgin & Child with John the Baptist and Donor (c.1491-4)

Evidence for art's self-referential allegory pre-dates the High Renaissance

Simone Martini’s St. Luke (c.1330’s) and other saints

Even the most natural-looking portraits can be something other than they seem

Sloan’s Portrait of George Sotter (1902)

Think of animals in art as artists and you'll be surprised what you can see

Stubbs’ A Lion (1788)

See how a monkey becomes a painter

Stubbs’ Green Monkey (c.1774-5)

Have you ever wondered why so many still-lifes have an open drawer under the table-top?

The Open-Drawer Question

Yet another visual illusion that has never been published.

Tiepolo’s Virgin Appearing to St. Catherine… (1748)

Bored by religious pictures? Think again.

Tintoretto’s St. Jerome in the Wilderness (1570’s)

Learn to identify the symbols of an artist's alter ego

Titian’s Ambassador Portrait (1541-2)

How God's hand becomes the artist's

Titian’s Assunta (1516-18)

How looking out for unusual features helps unlock meaning

Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne (1520-22)

One of Titian's masterpieces, it was destroyed by fire in 1577 but recorded in this engraving. Its secret, though, lives on.

Titian’s Battle of Cadore (1538-9)

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of how Renaissance artists identified with God. Both pervasive and unknown, the idea needs emphasizing to demonstrate its near-ubiquity. Here is yet one more example by Titian.

Titian’s Christ Blessing (c.1560)

Learn what to look for in a Christ: the artist himself

Titian’s Christ Flagellated (c.1560)

Learn how Titian uses the act of writing to veil the act of painting

Titian’s Images of Writing

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