Photo Pest: What Would Bill Think?

Thursday, October 2, 2025

What Would Bill Think?

Looking for a little existential irony? Take refuge from the selfie-obsessed crowd in the Uffizi's self-portrait gallery, established only in 2023 although Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici began acquiring them in the 17th century.

Several are what you might call the usual suspects, given the museum's raison d'être.

Raphael (ca 1506)

Bernini (ca 1630)

But many of the artists featured lived in later eras, including two of my latest enthusiasms, discovered in Venice.

Antonio Canova (1792)

Adolfo Wildt (1908-09)

More than 200 selfies, nearly all male and unfamiliar, in twelve rooms in all media, but mostly oil. Italianos dominate, or perhaps they were more likely to catch my eye with their fetching headwear.

Domenico Parodi (1700-10)

Carlo Innocenzo Carloni (ca 1710)

Francesco Caccianiga (1720-25)

Filippo Balbi (1873)

But as the talented crew becomes more international with the passage of time--six centuries from the earliest portrait to the latest--a cynic might ask if tourism has been a factor in their inclusion.

William Holman Hunt (1875)

Seeing Bill Viola's eerily incongruous video evoked a WTF reaction from this art lover. Somehow, contemporary self-portraiture seems like a fishy way to get into an Old (or Minor) Master's collection even if it is is the coin of the realm among the Uffizi's five-to-six thousand DAILY visitors. Still, it must have been the thrill of a lifetime for an American-born pioneer of video art who began his career in Florence. And unlike many of the artists who painted their images when they were in their physical prime, Bill recorded his just a decade before his death--one of his primary themes--making the work as meta as it is narcissistic.