MIn 1580, ichel de Montaigne declared in the preface to his “Essais”: “C’est moy que je peins.” – “It is I who I paint.” seems to be closest: your own ego. But he doesn’t give up. When he describes his writing as “painting” with words, this is to indicate that he wants to proceed with the utmost conciseness. The self-portrait is designed to catch the reader’s eye.
Countless artists and writers since Dürer, Montaigne and Rembrandt have made this claim their own, and since the late nineteenth century self-exploration has been booming. The exclamation mark in the title of Uwe M. Schneede’s book – “I!” – has a programmatic meaning. The long-standing director of the Hamburger Kunsthalle devotes an “overview” to the “modern self-portraits” from Vincent van Gogh to Marina Abramović, with the painting being generously supplemented by “happening, action, performance”. The book is like a long walk through the wonder forest of human views and abysses.
According to Schneede, there are three levels to be distinguished in the self-portrait. Firstly, it is about “self-discovery” – in the sense of Max Beckmann: “The search for one’s own self is the eternal path that we must never overlook.” But no matter how brooding the artists may be, their pictures document themselves secondly, “self-assertion” and “rebellion”. They are addressing an audience and against a world that marginalizes or “disregards” them. In doing so, they not only stage themselves as a model, according to Schneede, the “I!” Katharina Sieverding’s statement from 2021 fits this complex task: “Presenting oneself is one of the most fundamental statements that I can produce as an artist.”
There are some arguments against portraying yourself: It is “no fun to stare at yourself all the time”, remarked Helene Schjerfbeck in 1921. “In general I find the world more interesting than my own head”, writes Ernst Ludwig Kirchner in 1928. But some things speaks in favor of choosing oneself as a model. One’s own person, one’s own body are day and night – in vain! – available, and you can deal with this “best and most willing model” (Lovis Corinth) more bluntly, more unsparingly than with any other person. “My dear reflection is at least tolerant,” remarked Paula Modersohn-Becker in 1893.
Self Portraits in Hell
In Schneede’s book, for example, Edvard Munch’s “Self-Portrait in Hell” from 1903, in which a deeply sad figure gets caught up in a sea of brown-red flames, or Marina Abramović’s “Balkan Baroque” from 1997, in which she into a bloody, stinking mountain of bones.
Uwe M. Schneede: “I!” Self-portraits of modernity. From Vincent van Gogh to Marina Abramovic.
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Image: CH Beck Verlag
There are many scholarly references in this book, but Schneede is all too stingy with bold connections – such as the reference to the amazing closeness between Munch and Abramović. The style of this book is more pointillist than constructivist. The systematic order that must justify major leaps in chronology is not clearly comprehensible. It’s easy to get over that, because you’re grateful for the exquisite selection of images and many eye-opening interpretations. For example self-portraits by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Max Beckmann, Oskar Kokoschka, Helene Schjerfbeck, Bruce Nauman or Andy Warhol.
The usual canon is not only dutifully covered by Schneede (in addition to those already mentioned, for example Gauguin, Schiele, Picasso, Kahlo, Rainer, Beuys, Sherman), but carefully expanded (Ottilie Roederstein, Helene Schjerfbeck, Jürgen Klauke et cetera). At the same time, the text and sequence of images create a historical panorama spanning more than a hundred years – with the theme of death dominating the first half in particular. The death of Ferdinand Hodler’s parents, five siblings and mistresses, the death of Paula Modersohn-Becker in childbirth, the war death of Käthe Kollwitz’s eighteen-year-old son, the deaths of Egon and Edith Schiele from the Spanish flu, the murder of Felix Nussbaum and his wife Felka Platek at Auschwitz.
Throughout the book there are references to “shouting”, “laughter” and “insults” from the audience, which saw Edvard Munch’s picture as “mess” or an action by Günter Brus as a “public nuisance”. Artists cannot rest on their ego – and they don’t want to either. As the end of the 20th century approaches, the experimentation with identities becomes more intense. In 1976, Arnulf Rainer discovered “all new, unknown people lurking in me”, Cindy Sherman staged himself in a wide variety of roles, and Andy Warhol worked on the “altered image”.
One does not quite understand why in the second half of the 20th century Schneede relied so heavily on video, happenings and performance and treated painting (only to be named Baselitz, Lassnig, Bacon, Freud, Kippenberger) as neglected. The book could have been a bit longer, so that there would have been room for Tracey Emin, Orlan or Valie Export (who is at least mentioned briefly). However, Michel de Montaigne, mentioned at the beginning, warned against such seemingly endless wishes and recommended practicing the “great art” of “enjoying your situation and being content with it”. So one sticks to Schneede’s book as a good lesson in great art.
Uwe M. Schneede: “I!” Self-portraits of modernity. From Vincent van Gogh to Marina Abramovic. CH Beck Verlag, Munich 2022. 240 p., ill., hardcover, €29.95.
