Self Portrait Cultural History

Offering a rich and lively history, this is an essential read for all those interested in this most enduringly popular and humane of art forms.

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£20.00 £12.00
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Material Paperback
Dimensions 22.9 x 2.8 x 15.5cm
EAN/ISBN 9780500292112
No. of Pages 288
SKU 12089937

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Product story

In this broad cultural survey, James Hall brilliantly maps the history of self-portraiture, from the earliest myths of Narcissus and the Christian tradition of ‘bearing witness’ to the prolific self-image-making of today’s contemporary artists. Along the way he reveals the importance of the medieval ‘mirror craze’; the confessional self-portraits of Titian and Michelangelo; the role of biography for serial self-portraitists such as Courbet and van Gogh; themes of sex and genius in works by Munch and Bonnard; and the latest developments in our globalized age. Hall covers the full range of self-portraits, from comic and caricature self-portraits to ‘invented’ or imaginary ones, and looks deeply into the worlds and mindsets of the artists who have created them. 

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