Part 4 Project 6 Research Self-portrait

Fig. 1. Paul. Gauguin.

Man with a Toque, c.1876

While staying at beachside cottage in Aston Bay, South Africa, I was able to glean information on Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin from a comprehensive study on these two artists, Van Gogh and Gauguin - The Studio of the South. (Douglas W. Druick and Peter Kort Zegers, 2001)

What I found interesting was how popular it was during the course of history for artists to portray themselves as a professional, an artist, with the necessary professional tools.

A self-portrait of Gauguin painted in c.1876 “presents a rather callow, full-faced individual, with a soft, complacent demeanor at odds with the somewhat theatrical flourishes of small goatee and rakish cap.” (Douglas W. Druick and Peter Kort Zegers, 2001, p. 29) According to the text, it is a self-portrait stating his position as an artist.

Fig. 2. Paul Gauguin.

Self-Portrait at the Ease, c. 1 May 1885.

Eight years later, when he painted Self-Portrait at the Easel, c. 1 May 1885, he more emphatically includes the tools of his profession including a canvas stretcher and easel, tentatively holding a paintbrush above his palette. However, there is an “aura of anxiety” about this piece. (Douglas W. Druick and Peter Kort Zegers, 2001, p. 49)This is created by the claustrophobically tight space which pins him between the slanting beam of the garret, his upright wooden chair, and his easel. The strong light which falls on the left-hand side of his face highlights his uncertain expression. The garret setting depicts him as the “suffering artist” who in reality frequently defaulted on his rent. (Douglas W. Druick and Peter Kort Zegers, 2001, p. 49)

Fig. 3. Vincent Van Gogh.

Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait in Front of the Easel, 1660

I find the fact that Vincent Van Gogh represented himself in exactly the same pose as Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait in Front of the Easel, 1660, rather interesting. Van Gogh’s self-portrait, Self-Portrait with Dark Felt Hat at the Easel, spring 1886, shows him in a “somewhat formal jacket, tie, and dark felt hat… (bearing) little resemblance to the stained worker’s clothes and general dishevelment that had made him an object of ridicule and criticism in the past.” (Douglas W. Druick and Peter Kort Zegers, 2001, p. 57) By portraying himself in the manner of Rembrandt, he is connecting himself with the masters found in the Louvre, and setting the stage for his “new sense of identity grounded in his profession and the new belief in his real potential” to be productive and recognized as an artist. (Douglas W. Druick and Peter Kort Zegers, 2001, p. 57) This image of Van Gogh the artist was repeated throughout his life in varying artistic styles and color schemes. One of his later self-portraits executed after his stay at the sanatorium, sought to reinstate himself as an artist, who is self-aware.

Gauguin’s Self-Portrait, 1889, is symbolic in nature using the “saturated red and brilliant yellow” of the chromatic identities Van Gogh and Gauguin had previously adopted. (Douglas W. Druick and Peter Kort Zegers, 2001, p. 109) However, the composition appears to dismember his head from his body evoking an “executioner’s block with a more legible symbol of martyrdom: a halo or nimbus”. (Douglas W. Druick and Peter Kort Zegers, 2001, p. 109) His inclusion of apples and a snake seems to provide an ambivalent interpretation of his character, harking back to the biblical Fall in the Garden of Eden.
Due to internet problems at this seaside cottage, I was unable at this time to research self-portraits further, but read the interviews in Drawing Projects to get a better sense of how artists portray their models. I found the symbolic work of Gemma Anderson interesting. She sees drawing and observation as mutually dependent, happening simultaneously. Her consistent observations are distilled into her drawings, using “the language of that line to convey the visual relationships and resemblances” she sees as interesting and meaningful. (Mick Maslen and Jack Southern, 2014, pp. 120-121) She states that she borrows and transplants “visual signifiers, symbols, shapes and forms, from people, specimens and objects.” (Douglas W. Druick and Peter Kort Zegers, 2001, pp. 120-121)

Dryden Goodwin in conversation with Jack Southern expresses how he tries to “distil a feeling or emotional charge in to an image.” His drawings of Sarah, a leukemia patient going through chemotherapy at the time of some of his sketchbook studies, seek to show “an emotional record of spending time being with someone who is experiencing something very intense and trying to deal with it.” He describes the process of drawing a life room study of a person as “the process of making marks in relation to the synchronized action of looking at the subject and the page”, allowing “you to reach through the surface. In some way(s) you are touching who, what or where you are observing: touching without touching.” (Mick Maslen and Jack Southern, 2014, p. 180) He goes on to discuss how even drawing the 60 Jubilee Line staff at work for his Linear, 2010, project, shows the interchange and exchange that happened between himself and his models, each being “uniquely intimate.” (Mick Maslen and Jack Southern, 2014, p. 180)

Fig. 3. Tracey Emin. I Think of You.

Tracey Emin has a very different style of self-portraiture. She economizes her use of line, paring it right down to calligraphic feminine lines which cryptically suggest form. (Fig. 3) Her work is evocative; giving a sense that she feels unjustly misused sexually by her many lovers, who leave her lonely and wanting more. Her raw sexuality is often conveyed through her pose, with legs in the foreground open for sexual perusal. I can’t say that her work appeals to me as I find the blatant sexuality disturbing, but her use of descriptive calligraphic lines and restricted tonal values and hues is appealing.

Although these more contemporary artists were not discussing self-portraiture, they did emphasize the necessity to combine pure observation with an attempt to portray connections, to deepen the level of meaning of the drawing, incorporating a sense of relationship and intimacy in the portrayal.

Illustrations
Figure 1. Gauguin, Paul., c. 1876. Man with a Toque, c.1876. [Art] (Totally History).

Figure 2. Gauguin, Paul., c 1 May 1885 . Self-Portrait at the Easel. [Art] (Fort Worth, Texas, Kimball Art Museum ).

Figure 3. Van Gogh, Vincent, 1886. Van Gogh: Self-Portrait with Dark Felt Hat at the Easel. [Art] (Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Europe).

Figure 4. Emin, Tracey., 2014. I think of you. [Art] (Counter Editions).


Bibliography
Douglas W. Druick and Peter Kort Zegers, 2001. Van Gogh and Gauguin The Studio of the South. Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago.

Mick Maslen and Jack Southern, 2014. Drawing Projects an exploration of the language of drawing. London: black dog publishing.