Self-Portrait with a Visor c. 1776

Editor: Here we have Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin's "Self-Portrait with a Visor," created around 1776. It's a pastel drawing, surprisingly informal and intimate for its time, wouldn’t you say? I am mostly curious about the material: the rough strokes that look incredibly fresh. What stands out to you in this piece? Curator: The beautiful dance of aging and observation. Chardin, nearly eighty when he made this, depicts himself with an unflinching honesty, you can almost smell the dust of the studio settling on the paper. He isn’t trying to idealize or monumentalize himself. Editor: So, the honesty translates as something "intimate," or familiar... Curator: Exactly. It's as if he's inviting us into his workshop, letting us peek over his shoulder. You notice the light, of course? How it grazes the edges of his face, casting the glasses in sharp relief and blurring them into some misty atmospheric halo around the left side of the visor and face. Editor: The glasses definitely give him a scholarly look, don't you think? Almost… whimsical? Curator: Whimsical, perhaps, but also deeply human. Those spectacles are practically glued to his face, the source of wisdom, but the very wisdom that reflects mortality. Think of it. By this point, Chardin was a master, acclaimed by Diderot himself. Here, he is simply old Jean-Baptiste, working and wondering. Editor: I see that fragility now… it makes the portrait so much more powerful. Curator: It’s like he's stripping away the pretense, inviting us to see the world through his own, perhaps failing, eyes. Art about art but, much deeper, life about life! Editor: It is very moving indeed to consider this drawing now after your insights! Thanks so much for pointing all of this out.