The Hidden Meaning Behind the Boldest Self-Portrait Ever Painted
A depiction that crosses the line between man and divinity
This is one of the earliest self-portraits in the history of art. Painted by the German artist Albrecht Dürer in 1500, it has hardly been surpassed since.
It is a remarkable painting. Brilliantly done and with such self-assurance, the painted textures of the artist’s hair and coat are rendered in extraordinary detail, whilst the colour palette is mature in its restrained use of brown and cream tones.
What’s perhaps more striking is the resemblance Dürer gives himself to Jesus Christ.
And if there could be any doubt as to the sitter’s identity, then the inscription in the top-right of the painting makes things abundantly clear: “I, Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg have portrayed myself in my own paints at the age of twenty-eight.”
So what’s going on here? Why would Dürer execute an image of himself in such a way?
The answer is rooted in a discovery made during the Renaissance period, one that set a convention in painting that has lasted to this very…
