"The greatest mistake one can make is to believe that Art is the reproduction of Nature." Kandinsky

         

Napoleon by Ingres         Ingres by Ingres        Napoleon by Gros         Gros by Gros                   Napoleon by David     David by David

Who's Who: Problems in Great Portraits are short papers on how artists paint themselves:

#1  Early Netherlandish Portraits
#2  Napoleon and the French Kings
#3  British Monarchs
#4  Renaissance Faces 
#5  The Artist's Wife   (NEW ISSUE!)   
   

The Galleries contain many more examples of portraits that resemble the artist.

Britain's Observer  newspaper recently ran a half-page article on this website and Britain's monarchs.

Useful Links: The Art Newspaper 
                   Old Masters New Perspectives

 

 

 

 

 

 
(c) Simon Abrahams 
The content of all articles listed above are the copyright of Simon Abrahams

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A website of revisionist art history for museum curators, museum visitors and art lovers of all kinds. From Renaissance criticism of painting and sculpture to the modern theories of Panofsky, Goffen, Rosand, Barolsky and 
Leo Steinberg, great art has been misinterpreted by all but the great masters themselves. Among other astonishing discoveries, artscholar.org reveals how Michelangelo used his knowledge of inner anatomy, gained through
dissections, to depict brains,a kidney, phallus and even a clitoris on the walls and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Using an unfamiliar form of visual perception, we also demonstrate how Michelangelo used portraits and 
caricatures of Lorenzo Medici and Savonarola in his masterpieces as aspects of his own artistic identity, as king, prophet and androgynous God.