`The mirror, above all – the mirror is our teacher`, wrote Leonardo da Vinci. Portraits are an endless source of fascination, responding as they do to the basic human impulse to look at faces and try to see into the character behind them. Self-portraits have the added fascination that comes from looking into the mirror and trying to study one’s own face. This book presents an uninterrupted sequence of 500 self-portraits, in chronological order from ancient Egypt to the late twentieth century. The challenge of creating their own likeness has proved irresistible to artists, and included here are powerful and evocative works by many of the world’s greatest painters and sculptors, including Dürer, Rembrandt, Picasso and Andy Warhol. Each image is both a work of art and a study in psychology and self-perception – an idea taken up by the book’s mirrored jacket, where the reader’s own face becomes the 501st self-portrait. Presented without commentary, these works speak for themselves – a compelling collection for every student of art and human nature. The illuminating introduction is by painter and writer Julian Bell.
Ficha técnica
Editorial: Phaidon Press Limited
ISBN: 9780714843841
Idioma: Inglés
Número de páginas: 528
Encuadernación: Tapa blanda
Fecha de lanzamiento: 08/11/2000
Año de edición: 2000
Plaza de edición: London
Alto: 18.0 cm
Ancho: 12.0 cm
Especificaciones del producto
Escrito por Julian Bell
Julian Bell (Londres, 1952) crítico y artista, es hijo del historiador del arte Quentin Bell y nieto de Clive Bell, crítico de arte perteneciente al Círculo de Bloomsbury, casado con la pintora Vanessa Stephen, hermana de Virginia Wolf. Estudió Literatura Inglesa en Oxford y Arte en la City & Guilds of London Art School, donde actualmente es profesor. Ha publicado reseñas sobre arte en London Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, New York Review of Books y The Guardian. Como creador, Bell se inscribe dentro del moderno realismo urbano, en sus telas se aprecian las influencias de Antoine Watteau y Dora Carrington, y lleva exponiendo en las principales galerías de Londres desde la década de los años 70. También ha expuesto en Cambridge y Nueva York. Es autor de un libro de poemas y dos estudios más sobre arte.