Self-portrait

This pale face looming dramatically out of a dark background is that of the British artist John Opie (1761-1807). Looking over his left shoulder, Opie adopts a pose often found in artist self-portraits. While he appears to be looking out at the viewer, in fact, Opie would have been turning to study his features in a mirror, before turning back to his easel – which is out of sight. The influence of historic self-portraits, by the Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-69), can be felt here in the striking contrast of light and dark (or chiaroscuro) and the generous use of thickly applied paint (a technique known as impasto). Opie would have seen Rembrandt’s works during his travels through the Netherlands in 1786. This intensely observed self-portrait demonstrates the strong realism that established Opie’s reputation as a portrait painter. During his lifetime, he painted fourteen known self-portraits and over 150 portraits.

Born in Cornwall, with a talent for drawing and painting, Opie was ‘discovered’ in his early teens by the amateur artist and critic Dr John Wolcot (1738-1819). In 1781, he moved to London with Wolcot, who presented Opie as ‘the Cornish wonder’ and a self-taught prodigy – a marketing tool used by Wolcot to disguise his years of artistic mentorship. Within a few months Opie had sold two paintings to King George III (1738-1820) and received further important commissions through court circles. He was introduced to the artist Joshua Reynolds (1723-92), then President of the Royal Academy, who compared Opie’s paintings to those by historic artists such as Caravaggio (1571-1610) and Diego Velázquez (1599-1660). Opie became a Royal Academician in 1787. In 1802, Opie travelled to Paris and viewed the looted artworks from Napoleon’s European campaigns. These paintings became the foundation for his lectures as Professor of Painting at the Royal Academy, which he delivered in 1807, not long before his death.