Masterpiece: Self-Portrait with Model
Artist: Christian Schad
Created: 1927
Medium: Oil on wood panel
Dimensions: 76 x 62 cm
Location: Tate Collection, London, Uk
Photography by @art_love_enjoy_life & @1001before_you_die_collection at @tate
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“German painter Christian Schad (1894-1982) studied briefly in Munich before moving to Switzerland around 1914. There began to experiment with photography and to participate in the Dada movement. Schad left Switzerland in 1920 for Italy, before returning to Germany in 1928 and settling in Berlin. There, he continued to develop the sober and Realist style for which he is best known. He is traditionally linked with the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement that took place mainly in Germany and Italy in the mid-1920s. Schad’s mysterious Self-Portrait with Model is considered one of his masterpiece. The relationship between two figures in the painting is ambiguous. Aside from its title, nothing in the frame indicates that the viewer is looking at a portrait of the artist and his model. There are no obvious features, such as an easel, to suggest that this is an artist’s studio. The artist’s position in front of the model partly conceals her nakedness. Although not naked himself, the male figure is clothed in a skillfully painted transparent garment that graphically reveals his torso. The image is loaded with symbolism. A narcissus, signifying vanity, leans toward the artist. Both subjects are narcissistically depicted and exude sexual power; they do not look at each other despite the inference that they have recently made love. Disturbingly, the woman’s face is marked with a scar, or freggio. Such scars were inflicted by males in southern Italy on their lovers as a sign of their passion and possession of their lover’s body.” (JJ)
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