Week 4 - The Social Status

1. Identify aspects of Durer's self portrait that show a changing view of the artist's view of himself as an individual. Albrecht Durer's opinion of himself seemed to be rather egoistic in my opinion. In his painting 'self portrait in a fur coat' he had given himself the appearance of a stylised, charismatic living god. There's no doubting the conscious quotation of the conventional image of Jesus. The positioning is christ-like and makes a reference to a famous medieval portrait of jesus in the same compositional setting. Durer was indeed the preminant upriser of Individualism in the Renaissaince. At the time Individualism and portraiture had been unprecedented to proper paintting. This was because the standard beliefs for art during the Medieval period had been that there were no portrait paintings, and the focal point was Religion and Architecture. This self portrait infiltrates self identity and placement in the world. He expresses that he is audacious by placing himself in an alluding 'christ like position. Which at the time challenged the audience. Many people discouraged this style of painting from the fact it was an image based on an individual and not conventional subject matter. yet many were entralled that he had courage to express his opinion of himself in such a manner.