The evolution of selfportrait from renaissance to contemporary art

Self-portrait is a genre in which the artist transfers himself to future generations as he wishes, by ensuring his immortality. When we look at the self-portraits that have survived from Ancient Egypt, it is seen that the desire of man to record his own image has always been a part of human nature. With the reflection of the sense of individual rising with the Renaissance on art, the interest in who the artists are with the art of portraiture, and the self-portraits that combine these two concepts take their place in the history of art. Self-portraits are a genre that contains important moments from the lives of artists and are autobiographical in nature. Self-portraits, in which artists communicate with the audience in a sincere manner and manage their own images, evolve into a changing meaning and diversity with the prevailing art movements of the period, and appear in different meanings and forms in the history of art. With the discovery of photography, it is seen that the first photographic self-portraits formed the basis of the selfies that became popular in the period we live in. With this invention, the representation of reality in art lost its importance, and artists continued to produce self-portraits with new forms of representation in the field of painting. With the development of smartphone cameras and social media platforms that include image sharing, the understanding of the visual representation of the self has changed and the era of relationships established through selfies has begun. With the new fields opened by contemporary art and technological developments, artists continue their production with conceptual approaches as well as direct representation to self-portraits. In this study, the evolution of self-portraits from Renaissance to Contemporary art, the works produced by describing the movements and artists were examined.