I’ve been reading a wonderful book of essays by John Berger called Portraits where he makes the fascinating observation artists are caught in a trap when painting themselves while looking into a mirror, because what they will end up painting is the reaction they see to viewing their face. To attempt to mute this second reaction, some artists use two mirrors to paint how a stranger might see the object of their portrait.
It is an intriguing question to ask in the age of selfies what is the real subject of our photographs? Is it our first face, so to speak, or our reaction (and the adjustment) to seeing ourselves? Which then raises the question, who gets to see who we truly are?
Berger then makes the interesting observation that he believes Rembrandt, “at a certain moment… covered the mirror so that he no longer had to adjust his gaze to his gaze, and…. continued to paint only from what had been left behind inside him.”
Do you have a photograph of yourself you carry inside you? How would you paint yourself without a mirror?
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