Painterly Designs: Self-Portraiture Reimagined

Abstract Chapter 1 approaches dessein from the point of view of the painting metaphor, first used by Montaigne in the ‘Au lecteur’. It analyses Montaigne’s visual imagery to take seriously the contention that the Essais are analogous to a visual artistic artefact, asking what it might mean for a text to be like a painting. Departing from the standard interpretations of portraiture of the period as personality cultivation or commemoration, it finds in Montaigne’s language of visual metaphor a freer, more open understanding of visual representation that has more in common with Renaissance drawings. Adopting a comparative approach between the Essais and drawings by Annibale Carracci and Rembrandt, the chapter builds a case for Montaigne’s self-portrait to be seen as a sketchy, searching and ironic take on the portraiture genre.