self-portraiture
Assuming that self-portraiture is a form of autobiography, if the portrait looks nothing like your physical self, is that still considered autobiography?
Van Gogh said that he preferred painting to photographs, not only due to color (because at the time photography was black and white) but also because in his painting he was drawing something deeper than what you see on the outside, as if you were drawing the soul. If so, isn’t it possible to draw something which represents you completely, but looks nothing like you?
When I see myself in my head, the self I see isn’t the me I see in the mirror. First of all, I never see myself in entirety, or even my entire face at once. I am extremely detail oriented, and likewise, my view of myself is detal oriented. I see only my eyes, or only my mouth. I see my hair covering my face. And these flashes look nothing like me at all. Sometimes I have blue hair, or doll-life fragile facial features, or exaggerated shadows. I see myself with glossed over tinted black eyes without any white, or sometimes completely eyeless. Does that mean that is not me?
I’ve often had dreams where I would know that someone is someone in my dream, even though he looks nothing like as he does in real life. I know I am not alone in this practice, for my roommate and best friends have also admitted to substituting bodies for characters in their dreams. Their forms even change mid-dream, at times.
For example, my best friend Michi was with my brother once, but is currently with my god-brother Drew. She admitted to having a dream where Drew looked like my brother, but somehow she knew he was Drew. She didn’t even think of the possibility it was anyone other than Drew until she had woken up and thought back on the dream.
So if I was to draw myself as a doll with only one eye, and long, straight, dark blue hair, and gray-white skin, who is to say that is not me? In fact, I have drawn myself to look exactly like that, and wrote a autobiographical but highly symbolic story to match (though that is for another entry).
stock image provided by http://Gettyimages.com
Our body is just a shell. Just because two people look the same, such as identical twins, doesn’t make them the same person. They are just physically alike. And just because e become disfigured in an accident doesn’t mean we are not still recognizable. Or just because we lose the ability to hear or see doesn’t me we lose the ability to recognize when someone we love is near us.
In that sense, couldn’t we splatter our emotions onto the canvas, and say that that was our soul, or a part of it. Couldn’t a large majority of the existing art already be classified as a portraiture? What different rules go to classifying portraiture than biographies?
Van Gogh said that he preferred painting to photographs, not only due to color (because at the time photography was black and white) but also because in his painting he was drawing something deeper than what you see on the outside, as if you were drawing the soul. If so, isn’t it possible to draw something which represents you completely, but looks nothing like you?
When I see myself in my head, the self I see isn’t the me I see in the mirror. First of all, I never see myself in entirety, or even my entire face at once. I am extremely detail oriented, and likewise, my view of myself is detal oriented. I see only my eyes, or only my mouth. I see my hair covering my face. And these flashes look nothing like me at all. Sometimes I have blue hair, or doll-life fragile facial features, or exaggerated shadows. I see myself with glossed over tinted black eyes without any white, or sometimes completely eyeless. Does that mean that is not me?
I’ve often had dreams where I would know that someone is someone in my dream, even though he looks nothing like as he does in real life. I know I am not alone in this practice, for my roommate and best friends have also admitted to substituting bodies for characters in their dreams. Their forms even change mid-dream, at times.
For example, my best friend Michi was with my brother once, but is currently with my god-brother Drew. She admitted to having a dream where Drew looked like my brother, but somehow she knew he was Drew. She didn’t even think of the possibility it was anyone other than Drew until she had woken up and thought back on the dream.
So if I was to draw myself as a doll with only one eye, and long, straight, dark blue hair, and gray-white skin, who is to say that is not me? In fact, I have drawn myself to look exactly like that, and wrote a autobiographical but highly symbolic story to match (though that is for another entry).
stock image provided by http://Gettyimages.comOur body is just a shell. Just because two people look the same, such as identical twins, doesn’t make them the same person. They are just physically alike. And just because e become disfigured in an accident doesn’t mean we are not still recognizable. Or just because we lose the ability to hear or see doesn’t me we lose the ability to recognize when someone we love is near us.
In that sense, couldn’t we splatter our emotions onto the canvas, and say that that was our soul, or a part of it. Couldn’t a large majority of the existing art already be classified as a portraiture? What different rules go to classifying portraiture than biographies?
