Who Am I?

Introduction

In this essay I am going to discuss the question: Who Am I?

First I am going to answer the questions we had to make on the website, and then I am going to draw a conclusion from the questions I made.

Questions

Do these artistic methods—art and writing—help people to understand themselves better? Why is that important?

They want to know who they really are.

A painter wants to show the mood of the person by drawing lighter and darker, and with expressions on the face of the person in the portrait.

A writer wants to show the mood of a person by expressions and thoughts.

Might the answers to these questions be different at any given time?

Yes, because you can be in a different mood at any time of your life. One day you are very happy, next day you are very sad and the next day you can be very mad. When you are in a bad mood, you express yourself as very angry or sad by drawing dark colours. When you are happy, you draw yourself with very light colours.

What do you think Van Gogh is saying to the viewer in this self-portrait?

His face does not really express happiness, but the colours he uses pretty light. This expresses more the feeling of calmness then of sadness.

What do these changes do to the self-portrait and to your ideas about Van Gogh at that point in his life?

At first he expresses a feeling of calmness in his paintings, but in this painting he shows the feeling of sadness.

In which do you think Van Gogh appears calmer?

Van Gogh appears calmer in the painting with the light blue colours. This is because he uses lighter colours then the one with the dark blue colours.

What would you say are two of the most distinctive qualities of a Van Gogh work?

His most distinctive qualities are his use of complementary colours, using a lighter foreground and a darker background, and his rough brushstrokes.

Read these excerpts from Gauguin’s letters. Do they add to your understanding?

You can see that what he thought was important in the paintings he made.

Do you find anything unusual about this picture of Gauguin?

The portrait has two faces.

At first, the painting looks pretty happy and calm, but when you click on it, the painting gets a extra green adjustment, and the face looks worried, sad and a little bit angry.

How do you see Judith Leyster from looking carefully at her self-portrait?

She looks happy and outspoken. She does not really seem rich nor poor, but wants to show off her talent. She does not look shy at all, she looks self-assured, self-confident and proud. She is also very clever, creative, artistic and skilled.

Conclusion

Now I have answered the questions, I hope you have got an idea why artists make self-portraits, that is why I can answer the question: Why do artists make self-portraits? Artists make self-portraits to show other people in what mood they were and how they see themselves. So every time their portraits may differ because every time they are in a different mood, just like you. The one day you are in a mood, another day you are in a different mood.