The Self-Aware Image: An Insight Into Early Modern Meta-Painting

The notion of the painting as an art object is a relatively recent invention. The Self-Aware Image offers an impressive and complex account of the origins and development of this invention from the late Renaissance through the end of the baroque age. In comparison to the old image characterized by its preeminently liturgical function and its display in a predetermined space, the painting as the new image is increasingly autonomous and movable. As a modern art object, the painting becomes the …