by E.H. Gombrich
|
![The Diving Bell And The Butterfly [DVD] [2007]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51N1cYwWruL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
DVD ~ Mathieu Amalric
|
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Customers Viewing This Page May Be Interested in These Sponsored Links(What is this?) |
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Pensive, haughty, scruffy, scowling, clowning, vamping--artists have always revelled in the inventive freedom of portraying themselves. Younger painters lacking paying sitters often made good use of a mirror and a talent for making faces. Older painters--most famously, Rembrandt--searched beneath their own sagging flesh for the essence of a survivor.
Beginning with its reflective book jacket, which playfully inducts the reader into the ranks of self-portraitists, Five Hundred Self-Portraits is a delight for browsers. Works by famous and obscure artists from the Middle Ages to our own times are organised chronologically, one per page, in this compact volume. The early images demonstrate how self-portraiture evolved from walk-ons (the artist as a bystander in a Nativity scene, say) and occasional co-starring roles (the artist as St Luke, drawing the Virgin Mary) to fully fledged personal appearances by the likes of Dürer and Leonardo.
More than half of the images in the book were painted (or drawn or etched or photographed) during the 19th and 20th centuries. The stiff decorum of earlier periods gave way to a romantic introspection that evolved into neurotic self-absorption and frank exhibitionism. From Gustave Courbet, posing languorously with eyes closed and blood-spotted collar as The Wounded Man, to Jenny Saville, gripping a thick roll of fat on her graffiti-scrawled nude body, artists of the past 150 years have developed a repertory of dramatic strategies for self-display. But few are as quietly effective as 18th-century painter Joshua Reynolds. He peers out at us, one hand shading his eyes, as if dazzled by the blaze of his own genius. --Cathy Curtis
Product Description
Taking its inspiration from the Phaidon volume published in 1937 with the same title, this book presents, without commentary, 500 of the world's greatest self-portraits, arranged in a chronological sequence from ancient Egypt to the late 20th century. Included are works by many of the world's greatest painters and sculptors, such as Durer, Rembrandt, Picasso and Andy Warhol. Each image is both a work of art and a study in psychology and self-perception - an idea taken up by the book's mirrored jacket, where the reader's own face becomes the 501st self-portrait.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?
 |
55% buy the item featured on this page: 500 Self-portraits£19.95 |
 |
45% buy 500 Self-portraits |
Customer Reviews
|
There are no customer reviews yet.
|
|||
|
Video reviews
|
 |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
Your Recent History
(What's this?)|
After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. |
