From 23 February to 29 June 2025 the Museo Civico di San Domenico in Forlì will host the new major exhibition "Il ritratto dell'artista. Nello specchio di Narciso. Il volto, la maschera, il selfie". (‘The Artist's Portrait. In the mirror of Narcissus. The face, the mask, the selfie'.)
The first was Narcissus, who looked at himself in the mirror of water and knew his own face. The first self-portrait. Then came the selfie.
Over the centuries, portraying one's own face, one's own image has been - for every artist - a challenge, a tribute, a message, a projection, an exercise in deep analysis that shows ideal aspirations and emotional expressions, but also reveals mastery and talent.
Then a mirror is needed. Fear, caution or desire, even eagerness to look at oneself. An allegory of vices and virtues.
In the self-portrait, the painter doubles up in the dual role of model and artist. The eye rests on the reflected image to portray itself and the portrayed image is an other self and a self. Often a mask emerges. A character rather than a person. That is how it is for many artists, from the 17th to the 20th century.
But the portrait does not always stand alone. The artist's portrait is not the dark image of someone looking at you. The artist acts, gets in the way, emerges from one of his works that speaks of something else: in the midst of a mythological tale, a sacred story, a historical event. As Botticelli, Perugino, Dürer, Hayez and many others do.
Naked or clothed, made-up or disguised, smiling or melancholic, through the image of himself, the artist traces his inner world, the meaning of his art, the uniqueness of his style.
What makes the self-portrait so fascinating and almost indispensable in the eyes of artists - and not only - is its ability to entirely replace the person of whom it is a copy. The image functions as the subject's double, as in the myth of Narcissus taken up by the entire history of painting and literature until arriving, in the 20th century, at Freudian psychoanalysis.
From Titian to Rembrandt, to Van Gogh, from De Chirico to Warhol, the artist's portrait is an existential autograph. Sign, trace, memory, reflection to be translated into a definitive image, played out in time, against time, beyond time.
