So wednesday I had my last lesson of art education. Next year I don't have art education anymore but I have ckv. I'm interested in what that will be like. My marks this year were all around the 6/6,5 but for my last assignment about self portraits which is also on my blog I got a 8,6 and in the end my mark for art education is a 6,8 which I'm quite happy with. I don't know if I have to keep a blog in the fourth grade but otherwise goodbye!

In this assignment we had to make a poem and decorate it, I found this very hard and therefore I was happy with the 6 I got for it. This is my poem with the decorations on it:

here is my bookcover, it has been a long time ago since I made this but I still remember my project well. I liked it myself but I only got a 6 for it but I don't mind. Here are some photo's:

Introduction:

Self-portraits are of all times, even in the renaissance artists made self portraits. In art class we have been working with self portraits a lot, we have made self portraits of our own but we have also talked about them and looked at self portraits of famous artists. This essay in my final assignment about this topic. In this essay I’m going to answer several questions, but the big question is “Why do people make self portraits?’’.

Famous artist who made self portraits

Of course there were many artist who made self portraits, but one of the best was Vincent van Gogh, we was born on 30^th of March in 1853 and died on 29 July 1890,  when he committed suicide. He made a lot of self-portraits, you can see one on them on the front page of this essay. Something which I think is very strange is that when he lived his work didn’t get a lot of attention.

Another artist who made self portraits is Paul Gauguin, I really like the difference between some of his self portraits. When you for example compare these two self portraits of him:

                    

The first one is a very ‘normal’ painting, it looks like you see him in real life. However, the second painting is very different, it is totally not like you see him in real life and he uses symbols to express things like for example the snake to express evil and the halo to express saintliness, together witch the apple this refers to the story of Adam and Eve.

Another artist that was introduced in the lessons was Andy Warhol, he was an American artist who lived from the 6^th of August 1928 until 22 February 1987 when he sadly died of a heart attack. I liked his strange self portraits, especially this one in which he has four self portraits.

Conclusion

I have now taken a look at some important self portrait artist, each with a different style and living in a different time. I now have enough information to answer the main question of this essay: “Why do artist make self portraits?”. There are several answers to this question, they do it for things like:

-        Showing their skill via a self portrait

-        Making an image of themselves that does not fade during time. (immortality)

But these are just practical reasons, the real reason is that you can show yourself from the outside but also from the inside. The second portrait of Gauguin is an example of that. Especially now a days when you can make photos you can very easily get an image of your outside but one from your inside is more difficult, Andy Warhol is someone who has lived in these times and when you compare his self portrait to a photo of him it is very clear. People make self portraits to express themselves.

Sources

-        The lessons on elo, number 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,10

-        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol

-        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh

-        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Gauguin

-        http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/vgm/index.jsp?lang=nl

-        http://www.paul-gauguin.net/