Self-Portrait (Self-Portrait with Fur-Trimmed Robe)

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Self-Portrait (Self-Portrait with Fur-Trimmed Robe): Albrecht Durer

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Albrecht Durer Oil Painting - Self-Portrait (Self-Portrait with Fur-Trimmed Robe)

Keywords: Self, Portrait, Self, Portrait, Trimmed, Robe

Work Overview: Self-Portrait (Self-Portrait with Fur-Trimmed Robe)
Artist Albrecht Dürer
Year 1500
Medium Oil on wood panel
Dimensions 67.1 cm × 48.9 cm (26.4 in × 19.3 in)
Location Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Self-Portrait (or Self-Portrait at Twenty-Eight Years Old Wearing a Coat with Fur Collar[1]) is a painting on wood panel by the German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer. Painted early in 1500, just before his 29th birthday, it is the last of his three painted self-portraits. It is considered the most personal, iconic and complex of his self-portraits, and the one that has become fixed in the popular imagination.[2]

The self-portrait is most remarkable because of its resemblance to many earlier representations of Christ. Art historians note the similarities with the conventions of religious painting, including its symmetry, dark tones and the manner in which the artist directly confronts the viewer and raises his hands to the middle of his chest as if in the act of blessing.

In its directness and apparent confrontation with the viewer, the self-portrait is unlike any that came before. It is half-length, frontal and highly symmetrical; its lack of a conventional background seemingly presents Dürer without regard to time or place. The placement of the inscriptions in the dark fields on either side of Dürer are presented as if floating in space, emphasizing that the portrait has a highly symbolic meaning. Its sombre mood is achieved through the use of brown tones set against the plain black background. The lightness of touch and tone seen in his earlier two self-portraits has been replaced by a far more introverted and complex representation.[3] In this work, Dürer's style seems to have developed into what art historian Marcel Brion described as "a classicism like that of Ingres. The face has the inflexibility and impersonal dignity of a mask, hiding the restless turmoil of anguish and passion within."[3]

Geometric analysis of the composition demonstrates its relatively rigid symmetry, with several highlights aligned very close to a vertical axis down the middle of the painting. However, the work is not completely symmetrical; his head is slightly right of centre, his hair not quite in the middle——the strands of hair fall differently on either side while his eyes look slightly to the left.[2]

In 1500 a frontal pose was exceptional for a secular portrait; in Italy the conventional fashion for profile portraits was coming to an end, but being replaced with the three-quarters view which had been the accepted pose in Northern Europe since about 1420, and which Dürer used in his earlier self-portraits. Fully frontal poses remained unusual, although Hans Holbein painted several of Henry VIII of England and his queens, perhaps under instruction to use the pose.[5] Late medieval and Early Renaissance art had developed the more difficult three-quarters view, and artists were proud of their skill in using it; to viewers in 1500 and after, a frontal pose was associated with images from medieval religious art, and above all images of Christ.

The self-portrait is of a markedly more mature Dürer than both the 1493 Strasbourg self-portrait and the 1498 self-portrait which he produced after his first visit to Italy; in both of these earlier paintings he had highlighted his fashionable hairstyle and clothing and played on his youthful good looks. Dürer turned 28 around 1500, the time of this work. In the medieval view of the stages of life, 28 marked the transition from youth to maturity.[6] The portrait therefore commemorates a turning point in the artist's life and in the millennium: the year 1500, displayed in the centre of the upper left background field, is here celebrated as epochal. Moreover, the placing of the year 1500 above his signature initials, A.D., gives them an added meaning as an abbreviation of Anno Domini. The painting may have been created as part of a celebration of the saeculum by the circle of the Renaissance humanist scholar Conrad Celtes,[7] which included Dürer.

Dürer chooses to present himself monumentally, in a style that unmistakably recalls depictions of Christ—the implications of which have been debated among art critics. A conservative interpretation suggests that he is responding to the tradition of the Imitation of Christ. A more controversial view reads the painting is a proclamation of the artist's supreme role as creator. This latter view is supported by the painting's Latin inscription, composed by Celtes’ personal secretary,[8] which translates as; "I, Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg portrayed myself in appropriate [or everlasting] colours aged twenty-eight years". A further interpretation holds that the work is an acknowledgement that his artistic talents are God-given.[2] Art historian Joseph Koerner wrote that "to seeing the frontal likeness and inward curved left hand as echoes of, respectively, the "A" and nestled "D" of the monogram featured at the right ... nothing we see in a Dürer is not Dürer's, monogram or not."[9]

Late Northern medieval painting often portrayed Christ in a symmetrical pose looking directly out of the canvas, especially when shown as Salvator Mundi. Typically he was shown with a short beard, moustache and brown parted hair. Dürer has rendered himself in this manner, and gives himself brown hair, despite his other self-portraits showing his hair as reddish-blond.[2][11] The painting so closely follows the conventions of late medieval religious art that it was used as the basis for depictions of Christ in a woodcut by Sebald Beham of c. 1520. This was perhaps intended to be passed off as a print by Dürer from the start, and in later printings bears a very large Dürer monogram, though this appears to have been added to the block several decades later; it was accepted by most experts as a Dürer until the 19th century.[12] In the next century, the face was used for Christ again, in a Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery of 1637 by Johann Georg Vischer.[13]

Dürer presents himself in similar poses and expressions in both his 1498 Christ as Man of Sorrows and 1503 charcoal drawing Head of the Dead Christ[dead link]. Both are believed to be self-portraits, although they are not named as such. However, artist historians believe that since they bear remarkable similarities to his known self-portraits - including prominent eyes, a narrow mouth with a full upper lip, and the shape of both the nose and indent between lip and nose - that Dürer intended to represent himself in these works.

The portrait was likely donated or sold by Dürer to the Nuremberg city council. It was probably on continuous public display in Nuremberg from just before Dürer's death in 1528 until 1805, when it was sold to the Bavarian royal collection.[15] It is now in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, Germany. Nuremberg had had a copy made a few years earlier, which replaced the original on display in the City Hall.

Dürer was highly conscious of his self-image, and painted two earlier self-portraits: one in 1493 now in the Musée du Louvre, and another in 1498, now in the Museo del Prado. He also inserted self-portraits in other paintings, and made self-portrait drawings, although, he did not portray himself in any of his prints.[16] At least twelve self-portrait images survive, as well as the lost gouache Dürer sent to Raphael c 1515.

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It has no title, and it occupies no grand place of honor at Munich's Alte Pinakothek, where it's just one painting hung among many, and many larger, works in an undistinguished second-floor gallery. But Albrecht Dürer's self-portrait from 1500 would likely stop you dead in your tracks even if it did not play an important role in art history: It is a captivating, lush painting with a mysterious air that practically dares you to stop looking at it. No compendium of self-portraiture would be complete without it. In his book "The Greatest Works of Art in Western Civilization," Thomas Hoving, the controversial former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (whose eye is unassailable even if his provocations are not), called the picture "the single most arrogant, annoying and gorgeous portrait ever created."

Before Dürer, born in 1471, if artists depicted themselves at all, they kept their images anonymous. Egyptian artists, for example, drew themselves as background characters at least as early as 1400 B.C. By the end of the Middle Ages, artists had begun to show themselves as witnesses or subsidiary characters, perhaps as a bystander saint; occasionally, they moved to the foreground -- as in 1433, when Jan van Eyck is thought to have painted himself in "Portrait of a Man in a Turban" but true to past practice did not label, or sell, the work as a self-portrait.

Then along came cocky young Dürer, who first drew himself at age 13. With each portrayal that followed, he showed himself gaining in stature and elegance. In a 1493 painting, clearly labeled as a self-portrait, he wears a red, tassled cap and refined, somewhat aspirational clothing and holds a few flowers. In 1498, he has grown more assured, more natural, more genteel: He poses beside a window, turned slightly to his audience, in garments trimmed with gold lace.

In 1500, a bolder-still Dürer made his stunner: This time, Dürer faces front -- a rarity at the time -- and he stares directly, intensely at the viewer. His face, slightly elongated, is symmetrical; his long curly hair tumbles down onto a rich, velvety brown cloak, trimmed in fur. His right hand, Dürer's creative hand, extends upward, as if it may be about to gesture, perhaps give a blessing. The light falls unevenly on him, also highlighting his right side and enhancing the painting's realism. To his left, Dürer inscribed the painting: "Thus I, Albrecht Dürer from Nuremburg, painted myself with indelible colors at the age of 28 years."

To viewers of his era, the image is unmistakably Christ-like. Both confident and self-conscious, sensuous and spiritual, Dürer's work was destined to become an icon.

Durer accomplished several things in this picture. On one level, he portrayed the belief that God had literally created man in his likeness. More cheekily, at a time when artists were considered to be simply artisans, like goldsmiths or weavers, Dürer suggested that his artistry was a gift from his Creator, thus lifting it out of the realm of craft onto the plane of genius. He reinforced that idea with his choice of clothing, wearing a nobleman's coat at a time when people followed strict dress codes that signaled their station in life. Further, he added a new self-revelatory genre to the artist's repertoire -- virtually every artist since Dürer has made at least one self-portrait at one time or another.

Dürer would probably not be surprised -- he saw himself as a visionary. The third child of 18, he was born to a goldsmith who had emigrated from Hungary and married into a prosperous German family. He displayed artistic talent early on and trained in his father's workshop before being apprenticed to Nuremburg's leading painter. When he made this self-portrait, he was already well-traveled, having journeyed through Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Though always an innovator, Dürer studied and was influenced by the rules of proportion, perspective and harmony propounded by the Italian Renaissance masters. His precise, brilliantly detailed woodcuts and engravings in particular are feasts for the eyes -- among the best being "Apocalypse," "Melancholia 1," "The Knight, Death, and the Devil" and "St. Jerome in His Study." They, and paintings like "Adam and Eve," made him the most celebrated artist of his time.

Dürer left behind many letters and diaries, but he apparently never wrote a word about his 1500 self-portrait. Martin Schawe, curator for Early German and Netherlandish Painting at the Alte Pinokothek, told me in an interview that he believes Dürer painted it for himself and to show to his artist friends, not for the public, "because it was so unusual." He never sold it, but kept it in his home until it became the property, under unclear circumstances but possibly as a gift from Dürer's wife, of Nuremburg's City Hall. It remained there until 1805, when it was purchased by Munich's Pinakothek.

As befits an icon, the self-portrait has been analyzed many times, perhaps over-analyzed. Dr. Schawe dismisses many myths about the painting. The idea that one can see crosses in the reflection of windows in Dürer's eyes, for example -- well, sometimes a window is just a window. Or consider the notion that the painting's harmonious proportions are related to Dürer's age at the time and the year 1500, which was not only celebrated as a Jubilee year for the Catholic Church (of which Dürer was a member), but also was feared as a potential apocalypse. "All nonsense," Dr. Schawe says.

There is even a dispute over the translation of the inscription, where the adjective describing "colors" has been variously translated as "incredible" or "lasting," as well as "eternal" and "indelible," both of which reinforce the religious nature of the picture. Art books tend to favor "indelible," Dr. Schawe prefers "characteristic," and the Alte Pinokothek's own catalog uses "lasting."

What seems absolutely indisputable, however, is that Dürer is the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance, not least because of this beautiful self-portrait.

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With this painting Dürer, then 28 years old, created one of the most unusual works in portraiture history. The frontality and the strong idealization are reminiscent of representations of Christ, both aspects however being inseparable from Dürer's early studies of human proportion. His gaze and his hand, representing an artist's tool, are emphasized, rendering the painting an inventively programmatic. This is accentuated by the Latin inscription that underscores the work of the painter: "Thus I, Albrecht Dürer from Nuremberg, portrayed myself with characteristic colors in my 28th year."

The last of Dürer's three magnificent self-portraits was painted early in 1500, before his 29th birthday on 21 May. The picture is proudly inscribed: `Thus I, Albrecht Dürer from Nuremburg, painted myself with indelible colours at the age of 28 years.' It is a sombre image, painted primarily in browns, set against a plain dark background.

The face is striking for its resemblance to the head of Christ. In late medieval art, Jesus was traditionally presented in this manner, looking straight ahead in a symmetrical pose. Christ's brown hair in these images is parted towards the middle and falls over the shoulders. For the first and last time in Western art history, an artist was to portray himself in a Christ-like scheme. Given his idealized appearance as the underdrawing shows, his nose was originally irregular in shape - Dürer is approaching us in "imitatio Christi", in imitation of Christ. He has a short beard and moustache. Dürer has even painted himself with brown hair, although the other self-portraits show that it was actually reddish-blond. Dürer deliberately set out to create a Christ-like image, with his hand raised to his chest almost in a pose of blessing. But this was no gesture of arrogance or blasphemy. It was a statement of faith: Christ was the son of God and God had created Man. For Dürer, the painting was an acknowledgment that artistic skills were a God-given talent.

However, Dürer has subtly departed from the traditional image of Christ in his self-portrait. Despite initial appearances, the picture is not quite symmetrical. The head lies just off the centre of the panel to the right and the parting of the hair is not exactly in the middle, with the strands of hair falling a little differently on the two sides. The eyes stare slightly towards the left of the panel. Dürer also wears contemporary clothing, a fashionable fur-lined mantle. The result is a highly personal image, one whose `indelible colours' still influence the way we imagine Dürer looked in his later years.

The deceptive illusionism in which the picture is painted is also, however, a reference to the classical artistic legend about Apelles, with whom he had been compared by contemporary humanists.

Albrecht Dürer painted many self-portraits during his lifetime. The most famous and popular one was his third, painted in 1500 A.D. Though he would paint others and include himself in many of his works in various ways, his third self-portrait remains his most memorable one.

Description
An oil painting done on wood, this portrait is done in frontal perspective, showing the artist in a view from head to waist. Dürer shows himself as a somber man with shoulder length curly brown hair, light eyes, and a beard and mustache. He is wearing a rich sienna brown coat with a slashed upper sleeve and fur collar. His right hand is curled gracefully in front of him.

The background is quite dark, with no details given of the scene behind. On the right side of the painting are the artist’s monogram and the date, 1500. On the left is a Latin inscription proclaiming that Dürer painted himself in “colors everlasting, at age twenty-eight.”

Technique
Early portraits were usually portrayed in a sentimental, religious setting and stylized poses. As more secular portraits emerged in the Renaissance, artists still clung to stylized poses and carefully pretty interpretations of their subjects. Dürer abandoned the conventional scenery, typical 3/4 pose and carefully manicured subject to present himself as a compelling, realistic subject with slightly messy hair and intense expression.

Symbology and History
In the religious iconography of the period and preceding eras, usually only Christ was shown in a frontal perspective. Other saints and people appeared in profile or perhaps 3/4 view. Dürer’s choice to use a Christ like pose, complete with hand in front, was bold for its time and has led to much speculation on the artist’s meaning behind the work.

The painting belonged to the city council of Nuremberg, and was on continuous display there until 1805, when it was sold to Bavaria. It is now in an art museum in Munich. A copy remains on display in the city hall in Nuremberg.

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