The Image Of The Renaissance Self-portrait Of The Artist

Renaissance occupation continues the tradition of medieval, and painting, sculpture is regarded as mechanical skills.Although most of them still can not get rid of artisan’s identity, but the rising of some great artists’status arose the others the same desire. The artists made their new images by the self-portraits. These self-portraits also reflect their pursuit of identity’s change.The artists made their appearance in the religious narrative paintings firstly in Renaissance, and there were two kinds images in this form. The one is the artists who appear as witnesses of religious miracles, they usually stand in the story, but their eyes see beyond the screen to the audience, they act as a media of the story and real world. The other is the artist instead of religious characters in the story, they prefer St. Luke and Holofernes, John the Baptist (the martyrs) and so the image of the former representative of the artist’s career, the second are stand for their feelings. With the growth of the artist’s self-conscious, independent self-portrait appeared in the late15th century. During this Period, the popular of plane mirror provided the material basis for the development of self-portraits, for the artists take the advantage of mirrors to imitating nature and painting self-portraits. Self-portraits shaped many images of painters, sculptors and architects, and reflected the changes of their social status. These images included:the artisans of studio and the artists of academy (artists’vocation and education), independent artists (artist’s creative activity), melancholy and elegant images of the artist and the artists’eager for honor (artists’ temperament and social status). In addition, the women artists’talent has been widely recognized by the community in the16th century, and they also created lots of self-portraits which reflect the different images from their male counterparts. They were both professional women artists and versatile "court ladies" in the self-portraits.Under the impact of humanism, the independent self-portraits appeared in the Renaissance, and these self-portraits reflect artist’s living conditions, their desire and dreams. From the beginning of the Renaissance, painters, sculptors and architects used eccentric images to distinguish themselves from ordinary craftsman, but they become decent and elegant artists in the mid-16th century, self-portraits also recorded the change of their social status.Finally, the Renaissance’s self-portraits also affected the images of self-portraits in the later two centuries, such as the melancholy artist, elegant artist, wearing a gold necklace artist and other images were common in the next era.