Selfies all the rage in 1600s
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — These days, anybody with a smartphone can snap a selfie in a split second. Back in the Dutch Golden Age, they were called self-portraits and were the preserve of highly trained artists who thought long and hard about every aspect of the painting.
The Mauritshuis museum is staging an exhibition focusing solely on these 17th century self-portraits, highlighting the similarities and the differences between modern-day snapshots and historic works of art.
The museum’s director, Emilie Gordenker, says there has never been such an exhibition of Golden Age Dutch self-portraits before and her museum is keen to tie the paintings to a modernday phenomenon — the ubiquitous selfies.
The exhibition running through Jan. 3 features 27 self-portraits by artists ranging from Rembrandt van Rijn, a master of the genre, to his student Carel Fabritius — best known for The Goldfinch, which hangs elsewhere in the Mauritshuis — and Judith Leyster, whose self-portrait is on loan from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
A less- well- known artist, Huygh Pietersz Voskuyl, is the poster boy for the exhibition. His striking 1638 self-portrait features a classic selfie pose — staring over his right shoulder out of the frame. It does not take much imagination to picture him gazing into the lens of a smartphone rather than a mirror, which Golden Age artists used to capture their images for self-portraits. Giant mirrors are spread through the exhibition space, creating reflections within reflections of paintings that are themselves mirror images.
While the similarities between selfies and self- portraits are obvious — the subject matter is the person creating the image — the differences are also apparent. A selfie is often shot speedily with little concern for composition, while these self-portraits are carefully conceived works of art. A video made for the exhibition highlights the thought that went into the paintings and what today’s selfie makers can learn from it to improve their snapshots.
And yes, you are allowed to take selfies in the museum.