Themed Tours of the National Gallery 2: The Self

As any one who has ever taken a selfie, only to delete it and try for a better one knows, we all have an idea of how we want to be seen by others. This was always the case. When commissioning a portrait or painting a self portrait, the foremost thing in a sitter's mind was how to present a most flattering image, and how to persuade others of one's best qualities - skills, intelligence, goodness, power or status in society.
The consequence of that is that portraits usually lie in favour of propaganda.
We will look at the way artists from the Renaissance onwards manipulate their sitters' and their own likenesses to reflect their ambitions and society's expectations.