麻豆社

In this exploration of the self-portrait, the poet Michael Symmons Roberts starts with the modern phenomenon of the ubiquitous selfie and questions whether it really is such a quantum shift in the way we see ourselves in the world. Or is this just the latest tech-twist in the story of self-portraiture?

鈥淚t鈥檚 become a clich茅 to mock and revile it,鈥� Michael says, 鈥渃haracterising it as a narcissistic exercise, but the reality is more complex鈥�.

Self-portraiture goes way back to cave paintings, he suggests, and has a long and complex history. 鈥淚 still remember when I first saw one of Rembrandt鈥檚 self-portraits in the flesh, or LS Lowry鈥檚 red-eyed, searing vision of himself staring back. There鈥檚 something about them that makes us feel they are giving us the real person, a glimpse of the painter鈥檚 true self.鈥�

Michael goes on to extend his definition of the self-portrait from just painters and sculptors to include poets and novelists. The poetry of Nobel Prize winning Polish poet Wistawa Szymborska, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Emily Dickenson, and the music of Philip Glass, singer songwriter Don McLean and Nile Rogers, helps Michael conclude, 鈥淪elf-portraits, at their best, aspire to portray the inner world, not just the surface appearance.鈥�

Presenter: Michael Symmons Roberts
Producer: Michael Wakelin
A TBI production for 麻豆社 Radio 4