Remembering forself-portrayal. From postmodern absence of canon to genre ambivalence and decline

BogdanAlexandrov

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When an artist, after determining his individuality, conspiratorially decides to resist anonymity, the family tree of portraiture divaricates. From today's point of view, self-portrayal, which, as a conscious and autonomous artistic practice, we associate with the Italian Renaissance, arises subversively and secretly. In its deconspiration, besides Vasari, we also refer to a helpful, often telltale mediator. Mirror helps the artist to see and build the desired vision of  his own image. Through it he carries this image into a drawing with an attached starvation in the eye and a strangely reinforced asymmetry. Collectively considered, as a running action in the flow of time, self-portrayal reminds us of the myth of Narcissus, unlocking the urge for it sown doom and ending. In this sense self-portrait can be interpreted as a result of a meeting between two mirror surfaces – the eyes of the artist and the mirror as an object.