Vincent Van Gogh's Self Portrait With A Bandaged Ear

‘I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best’; This quote by Mexican surrealist Frida Kahlo expresses the importance of the ‘self portrait’ and how critical they are to understanding an artist. They are the form in which many artists have come to be remembered, offering insights into their lives, surroundings, and even their state of mind. Self portraits have been used throughout time to advertise artistic skills, to practise craft, to explore their inner turmoils and desires. It also conveys the most basic of all muses, oneself. Personally speaking, most of my artwork revolves around portraiture and like many others, I was encouraged from an early age to produce self portraits. As a result of this, It seems almost effortless to pencil out my facial features, the shape of my nose, my eye colour etc. This form of expressing one's identity through self portraiture can be as mundane as the artist's physical aspect, however I have chosen to look at artists who present their identity through not only traditional self portraits, but through symbolism and perhaps most interesting - their subjects and pallette.

The Dutch Post-Impressionist, Vincent Van Gogh is arguably best known for his iconic battle with mental illness. Such issues have been …show more content…
These are only a few health problems that Van Gogh is thought to have had, these are important to note in this essay on identity as they reflect the artist directly and perhaps influence certain artwork to be produced, there are many reports that painting levelled his emotions, it would be wise to note that Van Gogh was only producing art from the last decade of his life (roughly 1880-1890), which provides us with an insight into both the positive and negative emotions of the