Edvard Munch self-portraits

Another artist bridging the C19th and C20th is Edvard Munch (1863 – 1944). He was a Norwegian Symbolist painter and printmaker, an important forerunner of the Expressionist movement. You could be forgiven for thinking that he only ever produced one painting, the famous and disturbing The Scream (though he actually painted several versions of this between 1893 and 1910), but the fact is that Munch was another prolific painter of self-portraits.  The Scream is part of a series The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of life, love, fear, death, melancholia, and anxiety – issues much reflected in Munch’s own life and self-portraits.
In 1908, Edvard Munch had an anxiety attack and was hospitalized. He had a nervous breakdown. That was said to have been brought on by heavy drinking and depression. He did recover after he had an electroshock treatment. That is when his art went under and extreme change.
To the end of his life, Munch continued to paint unsparing self-portraits, adding to his self-searching cycle of his life and his unflinching series of snapshots of his emotional and physical states.
In the 1930s and 1940s, the Nazis labelled Munch's work "degenerate art” (along with Picasso, Paul Klee, Matisse, Gauguin, and many other modern artists) and removed his 82 works from German museums.
Before Munch died in January 1944, he had willed his large collection of pictures and un-catalogued biographical and literary notes to the City of Oslo. Consequently, the Munch Museum, dedicated in 1963, has a unique collection of Munch’s art and other material which illuminates all phases of his artistic process.

Van Gogh self-portraits

Following on from the self-portraits of Gauguin, the second in my mini-series on self-portraiture logically features Vincent Van Gogh. For Vincent the self portrait was a more serious affair, not least for economic reasons.
He painted over 30 self-portraits between the years 1886 and 1889. His collection of self-portraits places him among the most prolific self-portraitists of all time. Van Gogh used portrait painting as a method of introspection, a method to make money and a method of developing his skills as an artist.
As Van Gogh struggled to make a living as an artist he became reliant on his brother Theo and the charity of others such as Julien "Père" Tanguy, who ran the paint store that Van Gogh frequented in Paris. With their generosity of money and supplies, Van Gogh continued working as an artist and thought of portrait painting as a practical application of his talent. In a letter to his brother Theo in July of 1888 he wrote:
“Besides, I think I have spoken the truth, but if I should succeed in replacing in goods the money spent, I should only be doing my duty. And then, something practical I can do is portrait painting.”
In a letter to his brother Theo dated September 16, 1888, Van Gogh writes about a self-portrait he painted and dedicated to his friend and fellow artist Paul Gauguin:
“The third picture this week is a portrait of myself, almost colourless, in ashen tones against a background of pale veronese green. I purposely bought a mirror good enough to enable me to work from my image in default of a model, because if I can manage to paint the colouring of my own head, which is not to be done without some difficulty, I shall likewise be able to paint the heads of other good souls, men and women.” (below)

In addition to Gauguin, Van Gogh also exchanged self-portraits with artist Émile Bernard. After receiving a letter from Bernard and Gauguin with their self-portraits enclosed, Van Gogh responded to Bernard encouraging portrait painting believing that portraits would always be in demand writing the following to Bernard:
“I strongly urge you to study portrait painting, do as many portraits as you can and don't flag. We must win the public over later on by means of the portrait; in my opinion it is the thing of the future.”

Gauguin self-portraits

Following on from the sculptured heads by Franz Messerschmidt, for which he used his own face as a template, I thought I'd run a little series on self-portraits.
Having been to see the big Gauguin exhibition at Tate Modern last month (which incidentally convinced me that Van Gogh was the superior painter) I'll begin with Gauguin's. I'm sure that we're all familiar with his more famous Polynesian works so I think a look at his self-portraits would be a good place to start.
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was born in Paris 7 June 1848 and is considered one of the leading painters of the Post-Impressionist period. He died of syphilis at the age of 54 on 8 May 1903 at Atuona, Hiva ‘Oa, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia. The last portrait shown here was the last one he painted, in 1903.

Franz Messerschmidt sculptures

Watched BBC 4's new series presented by Art Historian Andrew Graham-Dixon "The Art of Germany" the other night. He covered the Gothic period in the first episode, and had a look at the remarkable sculptures of Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (1736-1783). We only saw a few of them on the programme so I thought I'd post a few more of them.
Messerschmidt was German-Austrian, and sculpted the heads in 1770-72. At this time he suffered from delusions and hallucinations, or a “confusion in the head” as his employer, the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts, described it. In 1774, Messerschmidt was expelled from the academy.

In 1781, Messerschmidt stated that the heads had been created as a record of his facial expressions on pinching himself to alleviate the pain of an illness he suffered, known now to be Crohn’s Disease. He intended to sculpt the 64 “canonical grimaces” of the human face using his own as a template.

Messerschmidt also claimed that he was physically tortured by “the Spirit of Proportion”, an ancient being who guarded the knowledge of harmony and who was angered by Messerschmidt’s disharmonius work. Personally, I think they're tremendous works, and wouldn't look at all out of place in an exhibition of contemporary work today.