With The Artist's Portrait. In Narcissus' mirror. The face, the mask, the selfie, a major exhibition curated by Cristina Acidini, Fernando Mazzocca, Francesco Parisi, and Paola Refice, the Cassa dei Risparmi Foundation of Forlì and the San Domenico Civic Museum open the 2025 season with a new long journey through masterpieces, reconstructing the progressive definition of the artist's self-awareness in art history.

"The first was Narcissus, who, looking at himself in the water mirror, knew his own face. The first self-portrait. Then came the selfie. Throughout the centuries, portraying one's face, one's image has been - for every artist - a challenge, a tribute, a message, a projection, a deep analysis exercise that shows ideal aspirations and emotional expressions, but also reveals mastery and talent. Then a mirror is needed. Fear, caution, or desire, even eagerness to look at oneself. An allegory of vices and virtues." This is how Gianfranco Brunelli, Director of the Grand Exhibitions at the San Domenico Civic Museum, describes the perspective from which this project was born.

The artist's portrait is an existential autograph. A sign, a trace, a memory, a reflection to be translated into a definitive image, played in time, against time, beyond time. In the self-portrait, the painter takes on the dual role of model and artist. The eye rests on the reflected image to portray itself, and the portrayed image is both an other from oneself and a self. Often a mask emerges. A character more than a person. For many artists, from the fifteenth to the twentieth century, it is so.

The artist appears among illustrious men, becomes a metaphor, a protagonist, and an image of his own time. The artist performs, puts himself in the middle, emerges from one of his works that speaks of something else: in the midst of a mythological tale, a sacred story, a historical event. 

Like Giovanni Bellini, Tintoretto, Lavinia Fontana, Diego Velasquez, Sofonisba Anguissola, Lotto, Pontormo, Parmigianino, Rembrandt, Titian, Hayez, Böcklin, De Chirico, Balla, Sironi, Bacon up to Bill Viola and Chuck Close.

Nude or dressed, made up or disguised, smiling or melancholic, through the image of oneself, the artist traces his inner world, the meaning of his art, the uniqueness of his style. This is why it is not necessary to portray oneself entirely, a face or a foot is enough.

What makes self-portraiture so fascinating and almost indispensable in the eyes of artists - and not only - is its ability to entirely replace the person it copies.