What a show-off! Hoping to win a papal commission, the confident young painter foregrounds his hand—and his skill.
Parmigianino, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, 1523–24 (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)
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Dr. Steven Zucker: [0:04] Sometimes in art history we say painting is like a mirror. That is, it’s a perfect reflection, utterly undistorted and exacting, but sometimes the mirror itself is distorted, and that’s what we have in Parmigianino’s “Self-Portrait.” He did this when he was 21 years old.
Dr. Beth Harris: [0:20] It’s a self-portrait in a convex mirror, and so the reflection we’re getting is really distorted. It’s a lot of fun.
Dr. Zucker: [0:27] It really is fun. It’s made even more ingenious, even looping back on itself, because Parmigianino didn’t paint this on a flat surface, he created a wooden base that actually is convex and mimics the mirror itself, which just heightens the effect.
Dr. Harris: [0:41] He’s really showing off.
Dr. Zucker: [0:43] Parmigianino’s face is almost dead center. He’s wonderfully calm, but it seems as if the world around him is swirling and kind of chaos has been unleashed by the distortions of this mirror. Then, I just can’t help but love the way what would normally be the rectilinear beams of the ceiling and of the window.
[1:03] All of the right angles that would form the architecture of the room here collapse around him and create this beautiful distorted frame.
Dr. Harris: [1:12] This is an early Mannerist painting. We think about Mannerism happening at the end of the High Renaissance beginning in the 1520s, and that idea of distortion, of showing off, of virtuoso technique, those are things we associate with Mannerism.
[1:29] He presented this portrait along with some other paintings that he had done to Pope Clement VII in hopes of achieving some papal commissions.
Dr. Zucker: [1:38] That did not happen.
Dr. Harris: [1:39] No, but you can see that this painting would really be, “Look what I can do,” and of course, he’s foregrounding his hand. The instrument of his great technique.
Dr. Zucker: [1:49] you know, it’s interesting, his painting is one that loops back on itself over and over again. If you look to the right side of the painting, you can just perhaps make out what must be a doorway, but it’s become very small. To the right of that, you can make out the gold of the frame of the painting itself, which must be on his easel, and you could see the top of the easel.
[2:08] You can see the frame that he’s fashioning that will actually hold this wooden panel. There really is a way that this is wonderfully self-conscious.
Dr. Harris: [2:15] When you think back to the very beginnings of the Renaissance, when the artist was considered craftsman, and how that’s changed, and how the artist now regards himself as this great talent with important services to offer the pope. Things have really changed.
Dr. Zucker: [2:32] It’s really intellectualized talent and one that thinks about issues of optics, issues of…
Dr. Harris: [2:37] Science.
Dr. Zucker: [2:38] …and really almost of the philosophy of seeing itself.
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