From the end of Antiquity (5th century CE) until about 1250, image-makers were more or less anonymous craftspeople. Traditional images from the Byzantine world dominated art in this period. When it came to art, what mattered was the skilful repetition of familiar icons, a model that left little room for individual and creative expression.
It wasn’t until the 1400s that this changed, when Italy came under the spell of humanism – a system of thought centred on people rather than God – leading to a burgeoning interest in the creative potential of individuals.
Byzantine icons make a virtue of repetition. By contrast, self-portraits celebrate unique personalities. Although there are earlier candidates, such as Jan van Eyck’s arresting Portrait of a Man of 1433, the earliest certain self-portrait in the western canon dates from as late as 1435: a low-relief bronze by the Renaissance polymath Leon Battista Alberti. Today, artists are expected to be disruptively individual, an idea that the earliest self-portraits express.
