Self-Portrait

Reynolds painted this self-portrait around 1780, at the height of his institutional authority as the founding president of the Royal Academy and the dominant theoretical voice in British art. The Discourses on Art, delivered annually between 1769 and 1790, laid out Reynolds's classical framework for painting: the elevation of individual observation to universal ideal, the subordination of colour and surface to form and expression, the primacy of history painting above all other genres. The self-portrait was a form with particular resonance for Reynolds — Rembrandt's extended self-documentation had made it a vehicle for artistic autobiography, and Reynolds was aware that his own series of self-portraits constituted a parallel project. Comparing this image with his early self-portraits makes visible the transformation from ambitious provincial to cultural institution. The wearing of academic dress, the confident gaze, and the lack of any props or studio accessories projects a man whose identity has become coterminous with his institutional role. Now in the Royal Academy of Arts, the portrait serves as a foundation document for the institution he created.

Reynolds employs a dark background with warm highlights on the face, channeling Rembrandt's chiaroscuro tradition. The academic robes are rendered with broad, confident brushstrokes, and the overall tone is one of sober authority.