"Self- Portrait" – A Study of the 'Self':

characteristics make the painter an investigative philosopher, a phenomenologist (Merleau-Ponty in
kenaan, 2004). He is a researcher who considers phenomena "miracles, the observing of which makes
our world meaningful and comprehensible" (Kenaan, 2004: 8). His creations are investigations, that is,
indefatigable searches as Merleau-Ponty claims.
The recurring encounter in front of the mirror is an endless research process "an unfinished
investigation, relit anew from one creation to another" (Lefort in Kenaan, 2004: 25). It is an investigation
in which the actual act of painting and the product of the act are what provide explanation and meaning
of the observed phenomena. The artist "attains the ability to recognize the observed, but only via the act
which makes the observed entity appear on the canvas” (p. 25).
What the craving to create and the passion to investigate have in common is that "no creation is perfect,
and most creations still have almost all their life ahead of them" (Merleau-Ponty in kenaan, 2004: 81)
―an endless process of observation and exposition, an unquenchable thirst. Thus, the 'chain of
observations' in the present study generates a 'chain of interpretations', since "investigating means
constant amazement, a search that goes around and around" (Merleau-Ponty in kenaan, 2004: 80).
The painter’s investigative passion and the manner in which he observes phenomena as a "philosopher
of wonderment" (Merleau-Ponty in kenaan, 2004) moves between the general and universal, and the
private and personal. As Geldman (2006) says: "Even when Rembrandt painted his self-portraits he
submerged in them the complexity and depth of the baroque consciousness of human life, and his
enormous sensitivity to the pathetic"(p.89). In investigating himself, the artist touches the universal. And
looking at the world, he observes himself. His paintings are testimony to his constant search and will
forever be 'self-portraits' because each painting is always a self-portrait (Whiteford, 1987). Self-portraits
as such are only the tip of an iceberg.
2.3.2 Painting a Self-Portrait – Researching the 'Self'
The self-portrait is a unique genre in art both because of the process of its production and its personal
and investigative character (West, 2004). For other researchers (Schildkraut, 1999: Platzman, 2001:
Chilvers, 2003) the genre has psychological tendencies. They define self-portraiture in terms of self-
awareness, identity construction, self-analysis, self-exploration, self-discovery and self-revelation. Basil,
the painter in Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Grey, makes the same point: “The painter discovers
himself on the painted canvas. The reason why I cannot present this picture is that I am afraid I have
found in it the secret of my soul" (Wilde, 1984: 12).
The painter’s persistent, investigative search becomes a clear case of self-investigation, using the
painting of a self-portrait as a modus operandi. One can again paraphrase Descartes' Cogito: ‘I paint a
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