Looking for Instagram Inspiration? Take a Tip From These Attention-Grabbing Self-Portraits by Rembrandt, Old Master of the Selfie

With more than 80 known self-portraits, the Dutch artist
Rembrandt van Rijn was a master of the genre. Some say he pre-dates
the selfie by at least a few centuries, and the director of
Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, Taco Dibbits, likens flipping through the
master’s catalogue to scrolling through someone’s social media
account.

Rembrandt’s 17th century selfies, which ranged from ephemeral
“snapshots” where he is pulling silly faces to stoic poses, were an
experimental playground for his portraiture in general. Together,
they trace his life in oil, etchings, pen, ink, and wash.

Today, Rembrandt’s vast oeuvre of self-portraits is scattered
around the world, but a new book by TASCHEN, Rembrandt: The
Self-Portraits, has brought them all together for the
first time. Though an eagle-eyed viewer can spot his cameos in
several of his larger paintings, the 175-page book focuses instead
on his dedicated self-portraiture, where Rembrandt is depicted
alone.

Authors Volker Manuth and Marieke de Winkel suggest that
Rembrandt was ahead of his time in being acutely aware of the
advertising power of his self-portraits, especially given that he
was becoming a well-known artist in the Netherlands and beyond. By
the final decades of his life, copies of his most popular “selfie”
were frequently produced and sold by his workshop.

So what can we learn from the master-painter’s proclivity for
depicting himself? Keep it weird and playful, for one. In mostly
small, informal formats, Rembrandt sketched himself with a range of
expressions through laughter, sorrow, grimaces, and grace. Next,
know your angles. Although he experimented with poses, the master
often depicted himself with his head tilted slightly to the right.
And don’t be afraid to dress up. Rembrandt painted himself dressed
in a mixture of different styles including fancy outfits and
vintage, 16th-century garb.

Check out some of Rembrandt’s most unusual “selfies” below.

The post Looking for Instagram Inspiration? Take a Tip From
These Attention-Grabbing Self-Portraits by Rembrandt, Old Master of
the Selfie appeared first on artnet News.