Portrait/Self-portrait

Words are tricky; they mislead.  We speak of portraits and self-portraits, asserting lexically that the self-portrait is a sub-genre of the portrait.  This is true to the extent that a self-portrait portrays a figure as any portrait does, except that it is the image of the artist herself or himself who created the portrait.  As an artistic fact, however, the self-portrait, painted, drawn or sculpted, differs fundamentally from the portrait of a person other than its artist.  A portrait may capture all the details of a person’s outward appearance so that the viewer who knows the sitter in person recognizes her/him. Likeness is the first demand of portraiture.  A better, more satisfying portraiture goes beyond likeness and succeeds in evoking the presence of the particular sitter, what might be called the anima beyond the persona of that person, not just the surface but the mystery of the being that lies under the surface.  I say mystery because there is ultimately no way of knowing anyone, by sight alone, beyond what she or he chooses to present to the outside world. Even after a long association between friends, there is always something that remains unrevealed to each other.  The artist portraying herself or himself, looking into a mirror, knows the sitter in depth, if not completely, certainly more than any other person.  In short, self-portraiture more easily allows a deeper penetration into the essence of the sitter, therefore a more introspective portrayal. If the artist succeeds in achieving the kind of introspection more easily achieved in self-portraits in portraying others, as Rembrandt did, we have great portraits.  Staring at the portrait of Juan de Pareja by Velazquez at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, I was moved to think these thoughts.