Was the first ‘selfie’ in history really taken by Paris Hilton, or is the practice older than we think? This spring, National Museum Cardiff is taking a stab at this question. On display from Sat 16 Mar is a truly showstopping self-portrait of a man who couldn’t have been further from an exhibitionist heiress: Vincent Van Gogh’s Portrait Of The Artist (1887). The painting is the headliner of a capsule exhibition entitled The Art Of The Selfie, which places the famous Van Gogh work amongst other self-portraits from the museum’s permanent collection and archives, including the likes of Rembrandt and Francis Bacon.
The Van Gogh self-portrait is on loan until next January as part of a reciprocal swap with Paris’ Museé D’Orsay for La Parisienne (aka The Blue Lady)by Renoir. This has been described by Arts Council Wales Chief Executive Dafydd Rhys as the “grand finale” of a £100,000 cross-Channel cultural exchange programme, The Year of Wales in France. (Unofficial national music ambassador Gruff Rhys was another temporary Welsh export earlier in the month, playing a special show at Paris’ Le Solaris on the back of his latest album, Sadness Sets Me Free.)
This is the first time the Van Gogh self-portrait has been shown in Wales, and no shortage of others could have taken its place: with no other models available, the infamously destitute artist painted 35 pictures of himself in his lifetime using a mirror, around 20 of which were done in Paris between 1886-88. As the gallery captions note, the reason the 1887 portrait stands out is it exemplifies an evolution in style for Van Gogh, combining Impressionism, Japanese art and colour theory that he was exposed to in the French capital to develop his distinctive bright palette and swirling paint application.
Like the Mona Lisa, you will be overly familiar with Van Gogh’s face given his posthumous superstar status; however, the experience of standing right in front of it – close enough to see every brushstroke – is more intimate and remarkable than any postcard or Google image search can replicate.
The Museum could have easily plonked the painting on a wall by itself and it still would draw a crowd, so I was interested to know where the decision to incorporate it into a special exhibition came from. Head of Exhibitions & Design Lowri Angharad Williams told me: “We talked about lots of different options, such as displaying it with what we’ve got in our French Impressionist gallery. But we wanted to show how amazing this is for us to have in Wales.”
Once the self-portrait theme was decided on, works from the national collection were then selected to encompass a variety of mediums, eras and perspectives to match. Among others, Van Gogh is in esteemed company with an aforementioned Rembrandt etching from 1648 and a Francis Bacon painting from 1963. Even without a gulf of time between the three, the striking differences tell you so much about how the ways an artist chooses to represent themselves provide a window into their psyche.
The troubled and humble Van Gogh immortalises himself on a modestly sized canvas with colours and style far removed from his impoverished reality; hair and beard unkempt and his clothes ordinary – shabby, even. Rembrandt’s small and delicate piece is considered and confident, his clothes and pose regal and his half-squinting expression studious and serious – a consummate master recognised in his time. Then there’s the dramatic Bacon, who places himself on a large canvas in a quiet domestic setting, interrupted by a trademark distortion of flesh that makes up his face and body – the inner complexities of his subject (himself) obscuring what the ordinary eye or camera can see. It’s notable that of this exemplary trio, Bacon existed at a time when photographic portraits were far more commonplace and accessible to the general public, and so the need and interest to accurately represent oneself via traditional mediums would have greatly reduced.
Among these bigger acts, lesser-known but nonetheless interesting artists fill the rest of the bill, including – as the Museum is wont to do – those with Welsh origins or connections. Swansea’s Cedric Morris follows in Van Gogh’s footsteps with a colourful, impressionistic 1919 oil painting made in Paris; Shani Rhys James’ 1997 portrait shows the artist’s face at almost uncomfortable closeness, layering oil paint on linen thick enough to look three-dimensional despite a deliberate eschewing of photorealism.
But my personal favourites are Anya Paintsil’s Blod, combining her Welsh-Ghanian heritage by depicting herself as the Mabinogion’s Blodeuwedd in traditional Ghanaian textiles and colours. The most modern edition from 2022, it uses a mixture of natural, synthetic and human fibres (the artist’s own) to create the most personal portrait in the whole room – Paintsil binding herself to the work like Dorian Gray. Meanwhile, Bedwyr Williams’ Bard Attitude photographic print from 2005 takes a more satirical approach to the same idea, highlighting how iconic images can help build a sense of national identity by playing bardic dress-up in a typical Welsh landscape.
Despite the strength of what’s on display, I can’t help but feel there’s a missed opportunity here, though. The advent of the camera and smartphone coupled with social media has helped make image-making an even more essential part of our daily lives, with the selfie both a beloved and a derided format. Can we feel better about our self-image and self-worth by being in full control of pictures of ourselves? Or are we becoming too self-obsessive and removed from reality by viewing and distorting them so ritualistically? And in a world where everyone is an image-maker, what does the role of the artist become? These are deeper questions that The Art Of The Selfie could have examined with greater space and a wider scope than just a single room with a handful of pieces.
Despite this, the question posed by this exhibition still makes an interesting discussion opener, likely even more so for younger audiences who may not have considered the practice of duck-facing with a selfie stick could have a connection to one of the greatest painters who ever lived. In any case, a visit to the National Museum Cardiff is worth it alone for a rare chance to see a Van Gogh portrait outside of its usual home, and with the institution’s new ‘pay what you like’ scheme, at hardly any cost, either.
Art Of The Selfie, National Museum Cardiff, until Sat 25 Jan
Admission: pay what you can. Info: here
words HANNAH COLLINS
