Spring Break at The Met

     During my spring break, I took a beautiful, windy 30° F day to visit The Metropolitan Museum of Art. My girlfriend, who by the way was ecstatic to spend the one day a week I get to see her, and I explored a few of the sections in the museum. We explored the 19th and early 20th century European paintings and sculptures section, the modern art section, and breezed through the European paintings from 1250-1800 section and American wing.

Edouard Vuillard "Self-Portrait with Waroquy" 1889

     The first self portrait I examined was from Edouard Vuillard. He was a French painter who lived from 1968- 1940. In 1889 he painted this, "Self-Portrait with Waroquy." The portrait shows the artists identity through the details painted into the portrait. Vuillard paints himself holding his paint brushes and paint pallet, showing what makes up his self identity. In the background is Waroquy. He is Vuillard's friend. His position in the portrait, I feel, shows there friendship. Him being in the background shows his support of Vuillard. Waroquy "having his back" so to speak. The curator calls it "dreamlike" in the description card next to the portrait due to quality of it since it was a mirror image.

     The next image is one from the modern art section. This image, "Stationary Figure" by Phillip Guston was created in 1973 near the end of his life. It is a cartoonish person that looks like he's wrapped up and bleeding. It is said that this is a self portrait. The description says this because he is an anxious smoker who lies awake at night while the clock ticks away. To me it looks like he is fighting depression. Tied up all alone in a room at night bleeding out as time goes by and all you can do is try to get a high. That's what seems to be the message in this image to me.

 

     My selfie is partially inspired by Francis Bacon's "Three Studies for a Self-Portrait." I felt connected to this artist due to our mutual dislike of selfies. Bacon stated, "I loathe my own face... I've done a lot of self portraits, really because people have been dying around me like flies and I have nobody else left to paint but myself." He doesn't use the entirety of his face either which also connects to me because I feel the less of my face in a picture, the better the picture.