Selfportraiture

Self-portraiture is the practice of depicting oneself by the artist. It spans painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, and digital media, and serves both as a record of appearance and as a vehicle for exploring identity, technique, and mood.

Historically, self-portraits became prominent in the Renaissance as artists asserted status and mastery. Albrecht Dürer produced a series of highly finished self-portraits; Rembrandt used introspective, loosely brushed images to reveal character and emotion; Vincent van Gogh repeatedly explored self-representation to map inner turmoil.

In the 19th and 20th centuries photography broadened the practice, enabling new formal possibilities and democratizing authorship. Figures such as Julia Margaret Cameron and later artists like Frida Kahlo used self-representation to address gender, pain, and personal experience. The mid-20th century saw conceptual and performance approaches, including Cindy Sherman’s camera-based personas and identity-focused works by others.

In contemporary practice, self-portraiture extends to digital media and social media, with selfies as rapid, informal forms of self-representation. Artists continue to interrogate subjectivity, the gaze, and representation, often engaging with issues of race, class, gender, and power.

Techniques vary by medium: traditional tools such as mirrors and prolonged studio sittings; photography and film using lighting, pose, and editing; and digital tools enabling collage, manipulation, and algorithmic generation. Across media, self-portraiture remains a means to study appearance, convey mood, critique societal norms, or claim authorship over one's image.