Self-Portrait with Fur-Trimmed Robe, 1500
Albrecht Dürer
Oil paint, lime panel · 67.1 x 48.9 cm
Dürer paints himself frontal and Christ-like, staking his claim as an artist-genius.
Dürer paints himself frontally, fur-collared and Christlike, meeting us with unsettling directness — a radical claim for the dignity of the artist in 1500. Meticulous to every strand of hair, it is one of the most arresting self-portraits ever made.
What you're looking at
The pose is the point. Full frontal, symmetrical, hand raised at the chest — that arrangement was reserved for images of Christ, and Dürer takes it for himself at twenty-eight. In gold beside his head he wrote that he, Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg, painted himself thus in everlasting colours. The hair is the technical show: individual strands laid over one another in dozens of curls, each catching light separately, which is what makes the whole thing feel less painted than grown.
On a Frame TV
About 5:7. Matted file — a clean 16:9 crop across a frontal portrait cuts the head, and there is nothing else in the picture to sacrifice. Dark ground, lit face, so it belongs in a dim room.
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More like this
Other works in the collection, starting with Albrecht Dürer.
