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What is a portrait part 1

So, a couple of posts back I posed the question what is a portrait and gave my thoughts on what a portrait is and what I see as the different types of portraits. To review, I tend to believe that at the heart of the portrait lies three distinct views:

1: The view of the subject as the subject sees themselves.

2: The view of the subject as others see the subject.

3: The view of the subject as the artist sees the subject.

In this post we will examine number 1 on my list, a portrait being the view of the subject as they see themselves. This can be explored either as a self portrait, or a portrait that is done by an artist on their subject, both of which we will be looking at here.

A lot of artists struggle with the self portrait, I believe because they have a hard time understanding how they want to communicate their own look and personality to the world. Some of my all time favorite self portraits are the ones done by the artist Francis Bacon for just this reason, as he definitely has a view of himself that is truly personal.