Self Portrait

Even though self-portraits have been around since the earliest times, it wasn’t until the mid-15th century that artists frequently depicted themselves as the main subject or character in their work. With better/cheaper mirrors, and the advent of the panel portrait, many painters and printmakers tried some form of self-portraiture. Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait) (1433, oil on oak panel, 25.5 x 19 cm, National Gallery, London) by Jan van Eyck (c. 1390–1441, Flemish painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting) may well be the earliest known panel self-portrait. He painted a separate portrait of his wife, Portrait of Margaret van Eyck (1439, oil on oak panel, 41 x 34.5 cm, Groeningemuseum, Bruges, Belgium), and he belonged to the social group that had begun to commission portraits (more common among wealthy Netherlanders than south of the Alps). The genre is venerable, but not until the Renaissance, with increased wealth and interest in the individual as a subject, did it become truly popular.

By the Baroque period, most artists with an established reputation, at least, left drawings of themselves. Printed portraits of artists had a market, with many being actual self-portraits. They were also sometimes given as gifts to family and friends. If nothing else, they avoided the need to arrange for a model, and for the many professional portrait-painters, a self-portrait kept in the studio acted as a demonstration of the artist’s skill for potential new clients. The unprecedented number of self-portraits by Rembrandt (1606–1669, Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of Western art), both as paintings and prints, made clear the potential of the form, and must have further encouraged the trend.

Almost all significant female painters have left self-portraits, from Caterina van Hemessen (1528–after 1565, Flemish Renaissance painter who is the earliest female Flemish painter for whom there is verifiable extant work) to the prolific Elisabeth Vigil Le Brun (1755–1842, French painter who mostly specialised in portrait painting, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries), who painted a total of 37 self-portraits. Worth pointing out in this context is the fact that van Hemessen is often given the distinction of having created the first self-portrait of an artist (regardless of gender) depicted at an easel, through her remarkable Self-Portrait (1548, oil on panel, 31 x 24.5 cm, Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel, Switzerland).

Further distinguished female artists, known for their self-portraits, include Frida Kahlo (1907–1954, Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artefacts of Mexico). Kahlo’s work as an artist remained relatively unknown until the late 1970s, when her work was rediscovered by art historians and political activists. By the early 1990s, not only had she become a recognised figure in art history, but she was also regarded as an icon for Chicanos, the feminism movement, and the LGBTQ+ community. Kahlo’s work has been celebrated internationally as emblematic of Mexican national and Indigenous traditions and by feminists for what is seen as its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form.

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907, German Expressionist painter of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, noted for her many self-portraits, including nudes), Alice Neel (1900–1984, American painter recognised for her portraits of friends, family, lovers, poets, artists, and strangers, and considered one of the greatest American portraitists of the 20th century) and Jenny Saville (born 1970, contemporary English painter, and an original member of the Young British Artists, known for her large-scale painted depictions of nude women) form a category of their own, since they all chose to depict themselves, unashamedly and unapologetically, in the nude.

Modersohn-Becker’s iconic Self-Portrait at 6th Wedding Anniversary (1906, tempera on canvas, 102 x 70 cm, Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen, Germany), defied all conventions of the time by depicting the artist semi-naked and apparently pregnant. Neel’s 1980 (although begun five years earlier) self-portrait, one of her last works before she died, attracted considerable attention when exhibited. Neel painted herself, in her eightieth year of life, fully nude and in a truthful manner as she exposed her saggy breasts and belly for everyone to see. As so often before, in one of her last paintings, she challenged the social norms of what was acceptable to be depicted in art. In our own times, Saville is credited with originating a new and challenging method of painting the female nude and reinventing figure painting for contemporary art.

Until the 20th century women were usually unable to train in drawing the nude, which made it difficult for them to paint large figure compositions, leading many artists to specialise in portrait work. Women artists have historically embodied a number of roles within their self-portraiture. Most common is the artist at work, showing themselves in the act of painting, or at least holding a brush and palette. Often, the viewer wonders if the clothes worn were those they normally painted in, as the elaborate nature of many ensembles was an artistic choice to show her skill at fine detail.

We can probably, more or less, safely guess that Ödlund has, indeed, depicted the actual clothes that she wore at the time in her 2024 Self-Portrait. Whether she was accompanied by an owl at the time, however, is somewhat harder to ascertain. The owl in itself definitely raises questions.

Based on its typical features, the owl can be identified as a great grey owl (Strix nebulosa), the world’s largest species of owl by length. It is distributed across the Northern Hemisphere, being the only species in the genus Strix found in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. In some areas it is also called the Phantom of the North, cinereous owl, spectral owl, Lapland owl, spruce owl, bearded owl, or sooty owl.

Throughout history and across many cultures, people have regarded owls with fascination and awe. Few other creatures have so many different and contradictory beliefs about them. Owls have been both feared and venerated, despised and admired, considered wise and foolish, and associated with witchcraft and medicine, birth and death. Myths about owls began in the earliest folklore, too long ago to date, but were passed down by word of mouth over generations.

In the mythology of ancient Greece, for instance, Athena (the goddess of wisdom) was so impressed by the great eyes and solemn appearance of the owl that, having banished the mischievous crow, she honoured the night bird by making it her favourite among feathered creatures. Athena’s bird, a little owl (Athene noctua), thus, became a symbol of knowledge and wisdom throughout the Western world.

As the symbol of Athena, the owl was a protector, accompanying Greek armies to war and providing ornamental inspiration for their daily lives. If an owl flew over Greek soldiers before a battle, they took it as a sign of imminent victory. The little owl also kept a watchful eye on Athenian trade and commerce from the reverse side of their coins.

By the Middle Ages in Europe, the owl had become the associate of witches as well as the inhabitant of dark, lonely and profane places; a foolish but feared spectre. An owl’s appearance at night, when people are helpless and blind, linked them with the unknown; its eerie call filled people with foreboding and apprehension: a death was imminent or some evil was at hand. Traces of these beliefs are apparent in Francisco Goya’s (1746–1828, Spanish romantic painter and printmaker who is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries) iconic print El sueño de la razón produce monstruos / The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (c. 1799, etching, aquatint, drypoint and burin, 21.5 x 15 cm), where the owls are believed to symbolise folly.

Another celebrated artist preoccupied with the symbolical meaning of the owl was the legendary Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch (1450–1516, one of the most notable representatives of Early Netherlandish painting). Little is known about Bosch’s life, but his extraordinary work mainly contains fantastic illustrations of religious concepts and narratives. Several of his most celebrated works, like St. Jerome at Prayer (c. 1482, oil on panel, 77 x 59 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent, Belgium), The Garden of Earthly Delights (1490-1510, oil on oak panels, 205.5 x 385 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid), The Triptych of Temptation of St. Anthony (c. 1501, oil on panel, 131 x 228 cm, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon) and Ship of Fools (c. 1500-1510, oil on wood, 58 x 33 cm, Louvre, Paris), include depictions of owls. Interestingly enough, a great number of the few preserved drawings believed to be by Bosch’s own hand also depict owls. The most celebrated examples are Nest of Owls (undated, pen and bistre, 14 x 19.6 cm, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, the Netherlands), Monsters (undated, pen and bistre, 31.8 x 21 cm, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, United Kingdom), Man Tree (c. 1470s, pen and bistre, 27.7 x 21.1 cm, Albertina, Vienna) and, the extraordinary, The Forest that hears and the field that sees (pen and bistre, 20.2 x 12.7 cm, Staatliche Museen, Berlin).

The title of the last example, above all, seems almost uncanny, considering how much attention Ödlund (in her multidisciplinary production), with an intense fascination for the vegetal world, has spent on the themes of nature and plants that communicate (aiming to bridge the language barrier between plants and humans), exemplified, for instance, by the book Growing the Third Ear Under the Great Astral Mother Tree (2022).

During the eighteenth century, finally, the zoological aspects of owls were detailed through close scientific observation, reducing the mystery surrounding these magnificent and mysterious birds. With superstitions dying out in the twentieth century, the owl has returned to its position as a symbol of wisdom, where its inclusion in Ödlund’s Self-Portrait could be seen as a way of depicting the artist as a contemporary Minerva (Roman goddess of wisdom as well as sponsor of the arts).