Self-portrait in the convex mirror
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| Self-portrait in the convex mirror |
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| Parmigianino , 1523/24 |
| Oil on poplar wood |
| Art History Museum |
The self-portrait in the convex mirror or self-portrait from the convex mirror is a circular painting by the Italian painter Francesco Mazzola, called Parmigianino , from the year 1523 or 1524. The oil painting painted on domed poplar wood has a diameter of 24.4 centimeters and hangs in the today Picture gallery of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna .
Description and interpretation
The painting shows the reflection of the painter sitting and drawing as a half- length portrait in front of a round convex mirror . The right hand close to the mirror is greatly enlarged by the distortion of the mirror image. She is holding a crayon, her little finger is wearing a gold ring. In the center of the picture is the chin of the 21-year-old man who wears half-length hair with a middle part. He is dressed in a white shirt with a frilled collar and sleeves and a fur jacket worn over it. Giorgio Vasari described the picture in his Viten with the following words:
“Now that all the objects that are close in the mirror enlarge and the distant objects become smaller, he painted a hand that draws, a little large as it appeared in the mirror, as beautiful as if one were looking at it in reality. Francesco was beautiful and had very graceful facial features, more like an angel than a person, that is why his image on this sphere was something divine, indeed he succeeded in the whole work so wonderfully that the model and the copy did not differ, as was the gloss of the glass , every reflection, light and shadow was so peculiar and faithfully imitated that one could not have expected more from the human spirit. "
In the background of the picture, indistinct and distorted details of the room can be seen, including the white wall of the room, a ceiling beam and a window. This distortion leads to an exaggerated perception of space, in which the portrait of Parmigianino is the only fixed point, while the oversized hand on the lower edge shields the person depicted from the viewer. Martin Warnke sees a direct interrelation in the position of head and hand and, above all, in the unity of these two elements. The shielding of the head behind it by the hand is a novelty in Mannerist art, since the hand, as an active element, seeks to establish a relationship to the viewer, especially in Dutch and also northern Italian painting of the time.
Origin and provenance
The self-portrait in the convex mirror was one of the earliest works by the then 21-year-old painter. According to Vasari, he painted it after being animated by his reflection in a shaving mirror:
“To pursue the intricacies of art even further, one day he set out to paint his own portrait by looking at himself in a semicircular barber's mirror; and when he saw the strange things the rounding of the glass brings out, how the bars of the paneling curve, doors and buildings shift completely, he felt like imitating everything for fun. So he had a ball the size of the mirror turned on the lathe and cut it through to have a semicircle on which he reproduced with great art everything that was reflected in the glass; primarily to itself so true to nature that it is priceless and unbelievable. "
After its completion, Parmigianino presented the painting to the then Pope Clement VII as a gift, thereby gaining attention in order to get further work in his service and thus to know that he was in his favor. He achieved this with the extraordinary painting and three other works. Clemens VII passed the picture on to Pietro Aretino , from whose estate it came into the possession of the crystal cutter Valerio Belli and, after his death, to his son Elia. It was from him in 1560 that the Italian sculptor Alessandro Vittoria bequeathed it to Emperor Rudolf II in his will . Giorgio Vasari also describes this provenance in his biography of the painter Parmigianino:
“When this work [meaning a painting of the circumcision of Christ] was completed, Francesco presented it to the Pope, who did not do it with it, as with the others, of whom he presented the Madonna to Cardinal Ippolito de 'Medici, his nephew, and that Spiegel-Bild had given the poet Messer Pietro Aretino, who was in his service; He kept that of circumcision to himself; It is believed that the emperor received it later, but I remember seeing that mirror image in my earliest youth in Arezzo in the house of the aforementioned Messer Pietro, where strangers passing through saw it as a rarity; I don't know how it came into the hands of the crystal cutter Valerio Vicentino and is now with Alessandro Vittoria, a sculptor in Venice and a student of Jacopo Sansovino. "
Rudolf II and his successors kept it in the Viennese treasury until 1777 and then made it available to the picture gallery of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, where it hangs to this day.
reception
The best-known reception of the modern era was the work Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror by John Ashbery , with which the latter won the Pulitzer Prize and other prizes in 1975 . This poem represents a very strong contrast to its Mannerist namesake, and it is assumed that Ashbery was conscious of the radical differences in the aesthetics of the mannerism of the 16th century and the postmodernism of the 20th century as well as the differences in the presentation wanted to point out the "self" of these two epochs.
supporting documents
- ↑ a b Giorgio Vasari : The life of the painter Francesco Mazzuoli. In: Lives of the most distinguished painters, sculptors and builders, from Cimabue to 1567, German edition by Ludwig Schorn & Ernst Förster, Stuttgart and Tübingen: 1832–1849 [reprint: Worms (Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft mbH) 1988], third volume. Digital edition Directmedia Publishing GmbH, Berlin (Zeno.org 021); Pp. 3111-3112. ISBN 978-3-89853-621-9
- ↑ a b Martin Warnke : The head in the hand. In: Werner Hofmann (ed.): Magic of Medusa. European mannerisms. Published by the Wiener Festwochen, Löcker Verlag Vienna 1987; Pp. 55-61. ISBN 3-85409-107-9 .
- ^ Giorgio Vasari : The life of the painter Francesco Mazzuoli. In: Lives of the most distinguished painters, sculptors and builders, from Cimabue to 1567, German edition by Ludwig Schorn & Ernst Förster, Stuttgart and Tübingen: 1832–1849 [reprint: Worms (Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft mbH) 1988], third volume. Digital edition Directmedia Publishing GmbH, Berlin (Zeno.org 021); P. 3113. ISBN 978-3-89853-621-9
- ↑ Provenance from Hofmann 1987, p. 143
- ↑ Richard Stamelman: Critical Reflections: Poetry and Art Criticism in Ashbery's Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror . New Literary History 15 (3), 1984; Pp. 607-630
literature
- Werner Hofmann (ed.): Magic of Medusa. European mannerisms. Published by the Wiener Festwochen, Löcker Verlag Vienna 1987. ISBN 3-85409-107-9 .