The SELFIE!

I first chose Francisco de Goya.  (March 30, 1746 - April 16, 1828)
One of the reasons I liked this to begin with is that it's a painting of himself painting but I then noticed that it took him 5 YEARS to complete this painting and what a contrast to the selfie of today.  He's dressed well in his top-hat and matching clothes and seems to want the viewer to find him well put together.

I then found this fantastic self portrait of Gustave Courbet. (June 10, 1819 - December 31, 1877) What jumped out at me was of course, the expression. It seemed quite different from other self portraits and seemed to show a quirky and fun side to him.  If it wasn't for his rosy cheeks you might find him slightly crazy looking in the painting.  I would imagine him to be one that thinks he's quite a good looking man as his features are near perfect in this painting. 

I like this guy....Joseph Ducreux...(June 26, 1735 – July 24, 1802)  Joe was a french portrait painter, and he had a bit of a passion for facial expression that was outside of the norm.  Consider that this painting was done in 1783!  If he's looking to show others what I THINK he wants them to see..it's simply something different than the same old boring portrait! I would imagine this man has a good sense of humor. He wanted to show that facial features did in fact...show the subjects' personality.


 Now for the modern selfie! For years I have abhorred the amount of selfies that I have seen. I recall loaning my husband's personal cell phone to his sister for a couple weeks while she was in need.  What I got back was a phone with literally hundreds of selfies. The same two looks on her face in every...single...shot.  It took me over 30 minutes to delete them.  The crazy thing is that this phone wasn't connected to Facebook, she was 27 and not 16.  I consider that to be someone taking the selfies for narcissistic reasons; she simply likes looking at pictures of herself.  Then, there are those who post them to the various social media sites.  The why's for me are not as simple as just wanting to see yourself...but a few different reasons:

• looking for validation
• narcissism to an extent
• one word: filters
• they feel it's a picture that captures in themselves what they want others to see for
• people get to choose HOW they are viewed
• And finally...you just look damn good today

I can't complain about it too much, about a year ago, after looking through facebook I realized I had almost no pictures of myself. Comes with the territory when the camera is always in your hands, so I have taken the dreaded selfie, I even took one with my new horse and titled it as our 'first selfie'...see?

At the end of the day, the 'selfie' seems to be  harmless but I have definitely gone Bruce Lee on my 10 year old niece for the duck face selfie.....