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Johannes Kepler, the astronomer who famously discovered that planets move in ellipses, presents an exceptional case we can reconstruct. Kepler got his assistant to paint an image of himself for a friend. This was just before Kepler stored up all his belongings to move his family back from Austria to Germany. His aged mother had been accused of witchcraft.

The post Thinking of Kepler on the beach appeared first on OUPblog.

Hard to believe the last two months have flown by with virtually no writing. But my blog stands before me with my last entry on October 2. So, before November totally escapes, I'm offering this short rhyme as a self-portrait. It is also the Rhyme of the Month on my website for December if you care to drop by. Cheers and Blessings.

A Self-Portrait
By Bill Kirk

What you sees is what you gets;
A happy life with no regrets.
S'ppose there could be one or two-
But hardly more than just a few.

There was that time I smoked a pack
Of Camels in the barn out back
At grandpa's farm-and I turned green.
But since then, I've been strictly clean.

And who knew Saki mixed with beer,
Would make my vision so unclear?
Going down, it tasted fine.
But later? More like turpentine.

Once I bought some swampland, too.
What a deal! I had no clue.
At last, we sold it ten years later-
Never found that alligator.

Rubbed some blisters; skinned some knees.
Got stung by some wasps and bees.
Gained some wrinkles, lost some hair;
Won a few bets here and there.

Found true love along the way-
Thank my lucky stars each day.
A life well-lived without a care.
And blessings? Yes, at least my share-

What you sees is what you gets;
A happy life with no regrets.
S'ppose there could be one or two-
But hardly more than just a few.

Nowadays with Google etc., it's quite unusual not to find suitable artists' reference photos. Despite a lot of browsing the web and my own bookshelves I could not find a picture of a man in the above pose. So there was nothing for it but to photograph myself and insert me into my own sketch for my next wood engraving in the current series.
Digital composite 30cm x 20cm. Click to enlarge.

When the going gets tough I always get in touch with my inner fairy.
Pen and ink with digital colour. Click to enlarge.

During a tidy-up today I found this self portrait from the pre-Cambrian era. I just realised that this is my 1000th entry on this blog.
Pencil 15cm x 10cm. Click to enlarge.

Yes, I did NaNoWriMo this year.
No, I didn't NaNoWriMo.
Why am I being so self-contradictory?
Let me explain.
I did sign up for NaNoWriMo.
I did not write every single day (who wrote on Thanksgiving? Show of hands?)
I did write as often as I could.
I did upload a photo and record my word count.
I did not chat or forum.
I did attend one 'write-in.'
I did not write 50,000 words.
I did not write 40,000 words.
I did write 20,000 words.
So why do I feel so wimpy?
20,000 words is pretty good.
It is not the NaNoIdeal.
It is not enough to get the NaNo Medal of Honor, or whatever it is.
And I don't want to compare myself to friends with full-time jobs whose houses are cleaner than mine who DID write 50,000 words.
Before the deadline.
I really don't.
I do have a first (very short) manuscript I'm excited about.
I am thinking of it (as, I believe, John Green suggested) as a long outline of my novel.
I have barely worked on it since November.
I am consumed with holiday madness (but only in my dreams.)
I will finish this novel (I hope)
I did enjoy the challenge, even if I failed :(
I will miss saying NaNoWriMo.
I did just complete this self-portrait, showing how I feel
about not finishing NaNoWriMo (ambivalent?)
NaNoWriMo!
How are you feeling?

Self portrait from some years ago.
Watercolour 21cm x 13cm. Click to enlarge.

Today marks the would-be 404th birthday of prolific Dutch painter/etcher Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, who was born in Leiden in 1606, and passed away in Amsterdam on October 4, 1669.

Cynthia Freeland is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Houston. Her most recent book is Portraits and Persons, and in the excerpt below, she considers Rembrandt’s many self-portraits, and speculates as to why he was so attracted to this art form.

Rembrandt was a particularly prolific self-portrait artist. Susan Fegley Osmond informs us that,

he depicted himself in approximately forty to fifty extant paintings, about thirty-two etchings, and seven drawings. It is an output unique in history; most artists produce only a handful of self-portraits, if that. And why Rembrandt did this is one of the great mysteries of art history.

There are numerous speculations about Rembrandt’s preoccupation with self-portraiture. “From youth to old age, Rembrandt scrutinized himself before the mirror, painting, etching, and drawing his changing physique and physiognomy as well as the varying psychological states that reflected the fluctuating fortunes of his life.”

A first concern that seems evident in these works, as with the previous artists I discussed, is Rembrandt’s social status and his identity as a gentleman. This concern shows up in his elegant garb, cloaks, hats, armor, and even in the poses in some of the images. Along with this is a concern with his artistic status and success.

Another conjectures about at least some of the images is that they are studies for paintings. Rembrandt used himself because he was a cheap, readily available model when he was planning certain sorts of composite history paintings or biblical portraits. This might account for the self-portraits showing extreme facial expressions, ones for instance where he is laughing or fearful. But these may also have been examples of a  genre called “tronies” which were popular at the time and had a good market.

At a deeper level, we can sense that Rembrandt is seeking to formulate and reveal a conception of his own psychological identity, the unique person that he was. This fits with the view expressed by Arthur Wheelock Jr., who notes:

[Rembrandt] was a singularly complex individual, who from an early age seems to have fostered the image that he was different from other men, and that neither his talent nore his success depended upon others or upon the good fortune that came his way.

Wheelock later comments,

Rembrandt’s earliest self-portraits are of particular interest because they demonstrate that the myth of Rembrandt as isolated genius did not first emerge in the Romantic era…but was fostered and developed by the artist himself.

Along these lines, art historians compare Rembrandt to more recent artists who have used the self-portrait as a form of experimenting with self-formation by trying on various identities (Rembrandt as the Andy Warhol of the seventeenth century!).

Like Cézanne more than two centuries later, Rembrandt employed the self-portrait as part of an effort to fashion the self, a s