#Painting: Self-Portrait as Allegory of Painting

[artved]

— Self-Portrait as Allegory of Painting by Elisabetta Sirani, 1658 (detail)

The goal of art is one’s self-giving, And not the racket of success. To be a fable with no meaning Retold by all is shamefulness.

— Boris Pasternak, 1956 (translated by Andrey Kneller)

[lionofchaeronea]

Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting (La Pittura), Artemisia Gentileschi, 1638-39

[sictransitgloriamvndi]

[portrait-paintings]

Self Portrait as Wunderkabinett

Artist: Julie Heffernan (American, 1956 -)

Date: 2003

Medium: OIl paint on canvas

Collection: Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC, United States

About this artwork

“Haunting and enchanting and eerie are wonderful words for getting a sense of how my paintings affect people, but I don’t drive or steer the work to any particular outcome.” Julie Heffernan’s ornate interiors reference the style and manner of Northern Renaissance and Baroque painting with dynamic, intricate compositions that meld portraiture, allegory and still life. Heffernan has been creating these allegorical self-portraits for more than 15 years, exploring what she refers to as her “second self.” Referencing Surrealist painters such as Dorothea Tanning and Leonora Carrington, who utilize extraordinary iconography and self-portraiture, Heffernan portrays herself in various guises to discuss issues of identity – her own and that of women in general.

[stigmatam4rtyr]

Self Portrait as the Allegory of Painting (from 1638-1639, oil on canvas) | Artemisia Gentileschi

[fairydustfromhell]

[ourstaturestouchtheskies]

Self Portrait as Mary Magdalene – Artemisia Gentileschi // Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting – Artemisia Gentileschi // Judith Beheading Holofernes – Artemisia Gentileschi // Esther Before Ahasuerus – Artemisia Gentileschi // I am not a woman, I'm a god – Halsey

for @peggyvan 🩵

[ashstfu]

hi ash could u give us a list of your favorite poems

ellen bass the thing is

kait rokowski a good day

dorianne laux antilamentation

pat schneider the patience of ordinary things

ada limón the endlessness

claire schwartz lecture on the history of the house

hester knibbe light years

amy beeder because our waiters are hopeless romantics

barbara has you cant have it all

maya c popa dear life

ada limón miracle fish

dorothea grossman the two times i loved you the most in a car

lucia cherciu butter, olive oil, flour

mary oliver when death comes

tony hoagland note to reality

louise glück averno

francine sterle nude in winter: “self-portrait as an allegory of painting”

[weary-hearted-art]

Artemesia Gentileschi, Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting, c.1638-39. Oil on canvas

[pmamtraveller]

SELF-PORTRAIT AS DAVID WITH THE HEAD OF GOLIATH /1756/ by JOHANN ZOFFANY

Zoffany presents himself here in the act of David from the Bible holding the beheaded Goliath. This is a gesture symbolic of triumph over a fearsome foe, proof of the bravery and the righteousness of David.

Goliath's head, often portrayed grotesquely in art, represents victory over evil or adversity. In this case, it is symbolic of the victory that Zoffany would have achieved over the challenges he faced in his career or personal life.

Zoffany was known to struggle with self-identity regarding being an artist in England where other established artists were at the time. By depicting himself as David, he claims his place within this artistic canon and emphasizes his triumph over all the challenges he faced in his career.

Painted in the 18th century, at the height of the Enlightenment period,the composition expresses interest in biblical narratives and allegory associated with contemporary European artists. It echos the era's interest in individualism and the exploration of personal identity.

[lionofchaeronea]

The Artist in the Character of Design Listening to the Inspiration of Poetry, Angelica Kauffmann, 1782

[sictransitgloriamvndi]

[longlistshort]

Laura Wheeler Waring, “Girl with Pomegranate”, ca. 1940, oil on canvas

Winold Reiss, “Langston Hughes”, 1925, Pastel on illustration board

Winold Reiss, “Alain Leroy Locke”, 1925, Pastel on illustration board

The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism at The Metropolitan Museum of Art showcases some of the outstanding work created during this time period. The exhibition also provides some background on the artists, their peers in the art world, and their community.

From the museum-

The Harlem Renaissance emerged in the 1920s as one of the era’s most vibrant modes of artistic expression. The first African American-led movement of international modern art, it evolved over the next two decades into a transformative moment during which Black artists developed radically new modes of self-expression. They portrayed all aspects of the modern city life that took shape during the early decades of the Great Migration, when millions of African Americans left the segregated rural South in search of freedom and opportunity in Harlem and other expanding Black communities nationwide.

This exhibition explores how artists associated with the “New Negro” movement-as the Harlem Renaissance was originally known, after influential writings by the philosopher Alain Locke and others-visualized the modern Black subject. It reveals the extensive connections between these artists and the period’s preeminent writers, performers, and civic leaders. At the same time, it reconstructs cross-cultural affinities and exchanges among the New Negro artists and their modernist peers in Europe and across the Atlantic world, often established during international travel and expatriation.

This complex, multilayered story unfolds through portraits, scenes of city life, and powerful evocations of Black history and cultural philosophy. Highlights include seldom-seen works from historically Black colleges and universities and culturally specific collections. Across its broad sweep, opening with founding ideas and concluding with activist imagery made on the cusp of the civil rights era, it establishes the critical role of the Harlem Renaissance in the history of art as well as the period’s enduring cultural legacy.

Horace Pippin, “Self Portrait”, 1944, Oil on canvas, adhered to cardboard; and “The Artist’s Wife”, 1936, Oil on linen

The caption for the above paintings reads-

Contemporary artist Kerry James Marshall has described Pippin’s self-portrait as a “monumental statement of self-confidence.” In this small painting, tightly cropped at bust length, Pippin gazes confidently at the viewer, his firmly drawn likeness reflecting a well-disciplined hand. Pippin portrayed his wife, Jennie Ora Fetherstone Wade Giles, at three times the scale of his own image, but he unified the two paintings by using a similar palette. Jennie’s blue dress is echoed in the background of his portrait, while the background of her portrait is picked up in the artist’s tie and button-down shirt.

The portraits in the exhibition are not the only standouts. Below are a few more selections.

Suzanna Ogunjami, “Full Blown Magnolia”, 1935, oil on burlap

William H. Johnson, “Flowers”, 1939-40, oil on plywood

Aaron Douglas, “The Creation”, 1935, and "Aspiration", 1936,Oil on masonite

From the museum about artist Aaron Douglas–

A core objective of the Harlem Renaissance was to portray the history and cultural philosophy that gave shape to a specifically African American identity and worldview. The artist Aaron Douglas, whose monumental murals earned him acclaim as the period’s foremost history painter, was also respected for his masterful use of biblical allegory to convey aspirations for freedom, equality, and opportunity.

Douglas first developed his signature silhouette figural compositions-derived in part from Cubism, Egyptian tomb reliefs, and American popular culture-for book and magazine cover illustrations in the late 1920s. He later elaborated this distinctive style in large-scale works for public projects and institutional commissions nationwide as well as at Fisk University in Nashville, where he established the art department and taught for thirty-eight years. Both Douglas and the sculptor Augusta Savage, founder of a Harlem community art school, created art inspired by the work of the author and composer James Weldon Johnson.

Laura Wheeler Waring, “Mother and Daughter”, 1927, Oil on canvas board

About Laura Wheeler Waring’s painting Mother and Daughter from the museum-

Mother and Daughter is perhaps the most direct engagement by a prominent Black artist of this era with the controversial topic of racially mixed families; its very existence was a disruption of the silence on the subject within certain segments of society. Waring experimented with some of the modernist pictorial devices favored by Alain Locke in her portrayal of a Black mother and her white-presenting daughter, rendering them not as specific individuals but as generic types emblematic of the omnipresence of racially mixed families. Flattening their near-identical facial features in profile, Waring established the true subject of the painting via the title and through the work’s most prominent element: the divergent skin tones that point to the subjects’ radically different paths through a social life defined by color lines.

Beauford Delaney, “Dark Rapture (James Baldwin)”, 1941, Oil on masonite

Finally, this portrait of James Baldwin by Beauford Delaney was also a highlight.

From the museum about the work-

Delaney met the writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin in 1940. Finding common ground on multiple fronts-intellectual, social, and artistic-the two gay men began a friendship that would last thirty-eight years. Dark Rapture, the first of Delaney’s several portrayals of Baldwin, presents the author in a thickly painted, expressive tonal study of reds, browns, and blues against a brightly hued landscape. Both introspective and joyous, Dark Rapture stands as a visual manifestation of queer camaraderie, identity, and the search for belonging in the modern world.

This exhibition closes 7/28/24.

[canvasmirror]

Léon Frédéric (Belgian, 1856–1940) • Intérieur d’atelier (Art Studio Interior) • 1882

This enigmatic work is thought to be a self portrait depicting a fantasy scene of Frédéric in his studio. He is obviously naked, on his lap is a skeleton draped with a shear, star spangled cloth and holding a branch (I don't recognize the plant or tree). Draped around the studio are the artist's clothing, hat, and shoes. An allegory, perhaps.

Interestingly, Frédéric painted the same star cloth in the painting Allegory of Night (1891), below.

[pintoras]

Elisabetta Sirani (Italian, 1638-1665): Self-portrait as an allegory of painting (via Le Gallerie Degli Uffizi)

[ourstaturestouchtheskies]

TS Eras (Self Portraits by Female Artists Version)

version one

Self Portrait – Marie-Gabrielle Capet // Self Portrait as the Allegory of Painting – Artemisia Gentileschi // Self Portrait – Sophie von Adelung // Self Portrait – Sabine Lepsius // Self Portrait – Helene Schjerfbeck // Self Portrait – Gwen John // Self Portrait: Girl with a Candle – Zinaida Serebryakova // Self Portrait – Elin Danielson-Gambogi // Self Portrait – Ann Mary Newton // Self Portrait – Nélie Jacquemart-André