Painting Yourself into the Picture
Valentin de Boulogne (French, 1591–1632). Saint John the Baptist, ca. 1613–14. Oil on canvas, 51 15/16 x 38 9/16 in. (132 x 98 cm). Private collection
«I have long been fascinated with the idea of artistic presence: the painter who includes themself in their work. Not as a self-portrait, per se, but as part of the fiction. It's a bit like the issue of the narrator in a novel, a means by which the author takes control of his work. We can find numerous examples of this in the work of Caravaggio as well as in Rembrandt, but why am I thinking of this now? Well, in what I believe is the earliest work by Valentin now on view in Valentin de Boulogne: Beyond Caravaggio (above), we find the artist quite conspicuously impersonating Saint John the Baptist.»
Identifying the model as a portrait is clear from the distinctive features and the combination of mustache and goatee—utterly unsuitable for the precursor of Jesus who spent his life in the wilderness living on locusts and honey! (Who had time to manicure a goatee?) We find the same figure years later, with a face that has become fuller with age but is still manifestly the same, in a painting of the Old Testament hero Samson.
Valentin de Boulogne (French, 1591–1632). Samson, 1631. Oil on canvas, 53 3/8 x 40 7/16 in. (135.6 x 102.8 cm). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund (inv. 1972.50)
If you look at the earlier picture—probably done not long after Valentin arrived in Rome, most likely penniless—and if you imagine him with a brush in his right hand and a palette in his left, I think you'll recognize that what we see is Valentin looking in a mirror as he paints himself as Saint John. He plays on the fiction of painting as well as an assertion of authorship and of identity—or should we say self-identification? It's yet another of the very modern aspects of this great painter.
Related Links
Valentin de Boulogne: Beyond Caravaggio, on view at The Met Fifth Avenue through January 16, 2017
Keith Christiansen
Keith Christiansen began his career as assistant curator in 1977 and between 2009 and 2021 was the John Pope-Hennessy Chairman of European Paintings. In his forty-four years at the Museum, he collaborated in the organization of over twenty exhibitions on Italian, Spanish and French artists. He has taught at Columbia University and the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University and was the Clarence and Ruth Wedgewood Kennedy Professor in Renaissance Studies at Smith College (1999) and guest professor at Vassar (2006). In addition to the many acquisitions he pursued that have enriched the Museum’s collection, he has published widely and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, conferred by the Ministry of Arts in France.
Selected publications
MetPublications: Selected publications by Keith Christiansen