The culture of the self-portrait in its historical development

Abstract

The introspection of the self in the self-portrait includes a variety of meanings and typologies in the universe of arts, a game that has been taking place in painting for centuries. The portrait had a revulsion with the emergence of photography, but the self-portrait with the arrival of the Digital Era has increased exponentially, adapting the English term selfie. An analysis in which this genre is investigated, which since the classical era with the myth of Narcissus lays the foundations of a certain ego and vanity linked to self-portrait. Whether in painting or photography, a certain spiritual union is offered in this genre as a mask that sometimes reveals the emotional, transcends immortality, and obtains even greater force with new technologies, giving priority to the mobile along with its advances in the camera digital with which to be able to stop time and self-reflect as if it were a mirror, in such widespread use by means of the new supports that make us dominate the composition.