Relaxed, cool, maybe posing against a spectacular backdrop or with celebrity-style affectation: The projected image of the selfie is a social and professional calling card - and it was hardly different for the pioneers of the self-portrait. What we now momentarily create and circulate on the internet with the click of a button was once an art work in itself, demanding days or weeks of toil with brush, palette and oils.
A new exhibition called Images of the Artist: Self-fashioning and Tradition at Munich's Neue Pinakothek art gallery examines such forms of self-expression in the 19th century. "Artists placed themselves in the centre of attention during this period more than ever before," says Martin Schawe, deputy director of the museum, Bavaria's leading citadel of art.
Nor was this just shameless narcissism - the era's penchant for self-portrayal had strong economic motivation too. As once plentiful orders from the Church and nobility tailed off, artists increasingly had to make their own way on the free art market, using their work to draw attention while honing their image in the process.
The serene and beautiful youth, the playboy, the genius, there were many variations. Some liked to portray themselves in the style of old masters like Rembrandt. The stock favourite pose was with pensive gaze, gently twisted posture, a purple robe and some casual brush strokes around the borders, all intended to lend a sensitive, intellectual air to the artist. This look characterizes self-portraits by Pompeo Girolamo Batoni, Anton Raphael Mengs and Anton Graff, evoking today's obligatory smart-phone selfies shot at the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids of Giza or Dubai's Burj Khalifa.
Artists would often paint themselves in flattering historical contexts or in their own studio. Tones widely varied too. Belgian artist James Ensor's self-portraits were colourful and surreal, like his 1899 work set in a sea of grotesque masks, while Leon Brunin preferred to look out from a gloomy baroque background.
Artists might also stray from the "classic selfie" motif by giving colleagues and themselves a simultaneous promotional boost. In his Monet in his Studio Boat (1874), Edouard Manet depicts his friend Claude Monet working on the River Seine. In doing so he "aspires to show that the whole world is his studio," believes the museum's curator Andreas Plackinger. And Marie-Gabrielle Capet's ingenious self-staging in Studio Scene (1808), in the company of her teacher and a dozen more Parisian artists, unites four generations of teachers and students. "Past and present are represented here as in few other examples," says Plackinger, noting that a female artist was the exception at the time.
The exhibition also includes some misassumptions in the genre. Two works were previously thought to be self-portraits by Renaissance painter Raphael, one as a curly-haired blond boy and then with jet-black hair. It was eventually established that the blonde was Florentine banker and friend Bindo Altoviti, painted by Raphael. The identities of the other subject and artist are unknown.
Raphael was revered for his immortally harmonious compositions, which created a veritable cult at the time. People would break down in tears in front of his self-portraits "because they were so moved," says Plackinger. "Against this backdrop of emotionalized worship, the demand for paintings of him was particularly high."
The exhibition features around 50 works drawn largely from the Neue Pinakothek's own collections. "For this exhibition we threw our treasure-house, our repositories, wide open," says Schawe. Many pictures, like the two presumed Raphael images, were bought by King Ludwig I of Bavaria, an avid collector of portrayals of specific artists. "These artists served the royal propaganda," explains Plackinger. Ludwig wanted to "upgrade" Bavaria on the European stage through his cultural policy, which laid the foundation for Munich's future standing as an art centre.
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