Selbstbildnis

Self-Portrait (Selbstbildnis, 1870), in the Bavarian State Painting Collections, is one of several self-portraits by Marées that trace his physical and psychological development across his career. In 1870 he was in Rome, deeply engaged with the Italian figure tradition and in close dialogue with Hildebrand and the theorist Fiedler, who recognized in Marées's work qualities that the contemporary art world had failed to appreciate. The self-portrait is a reckoning — an artist examining himself with the same searching attention he brought to any subject, and also an assertion of the seriousness with which he took his vocation. Marées's self-portraits are notable for their psychological directness and their refusal of self-aggrandizement; he does not present himself as romantic genius or successful professional, but simply as a man attempting to see clearly.

The self-portrait composition places the painter's face in close proximity to the picture plane, lit from a consistent direction that models the facial planes clearly. Marées builds the face through warm tonal gradation, with particular attention to the transitions between light and shadow. The handling is controlled but not over-finished, appropriate for a work of private reckoning.