I rarely take a selfie straight on. The two-handed hold, staring straight into the camera feels clinical to me. There’s no room for angles or concealing. I pretty much only use the straight on selfie when I need to check if my hair is lopsided or if glasses I’m trying on would look good. For me, the straight on self portrait is about utility and striving for perfection.

Durer’s self portrait feels the same. The fact that Durer had only convex mirrors blew my mind. He went through all the calculations to perfectly align his features in a symmetrical, sacred fashion. At first, I wanted to give Durer the benefit of the doubt: he just wanted to document himself in the most anatomically accurate portrayal. However, the similarity to holy image of saints and Christ is undeniable. After looking at the portrait for a while, Durer’s representation of himself ended up looking unrealistic. I was thrown off by how biblical this man chose to paint himself and subsequently stopped looking at it as a utilitarian documentation of self. However, if that portrait had been done in current day on a camera, I would perceive it to be a utilitarian, anatomically accurate portrayal of self.

note: i don’t have an nyt account so i had to read it on archive.ph