Montaigne’s self-portrait
Metaphor
Montaigne’s library, which he called his « librairie »
As he writes, Montaigne uses a highly varied artistic lexicon typical of the other arts, among which painting predominates: “paint”, “portrait”, “painting”, “mould”, “build”, “canvas”, “variegation”, “colours”… The writing becomes pictorial…artistic.
Among the many illusions to the painting of oneself threaded throughout the three books, the dominant one is the moment in which Montaigne, considering the occupations of the King of Sicily, wonders:
“… a portrait which he had himself made of himself. Why indeed should it not be allowed for each one to paint himself with the pen, as he painted himself with a crayon?” (II, 17, p.4438)
- The Interartistic phenomenon through Montaigne’s Essays, Peter Lang, Bern, 2018, ISBN: 978-3034333177, р. 150
- “Les figures de style interartistiques à travers les Essais de Montaigne“, http://www.ens.cm/spip.php?article518, in Syllabus article, Volume 3 (1) 2012, Université de Yaoundé, Cameroun, [Interartistic figures of speech in Montaigne’s Essays, http://www.ens.cm/spip.php?article518, in Syllabus article, Volume 3 (1) 2012, Yaoundé University, Cameroun].
The castle’s tower
Alain Legros, whose weighty study bears mainly on the inscriptions on the tower, notes that it is mainly given over to figurative paintings of which the tones are above all blue and yellow, with shades of green. The spectre of the colours red and orange serve only to highlight certain elements of the whole, made up of a sample of paintings warmly evoking the Roman antiquity so beloved of the author before and after his journey to Italy.
Text presented at the Lumière II University of Lyon The Signs of the World, Interculture and Globalisation – 8th International Congress of the International Association of Semiotics, L’interface des images et des signes verbaux, The Interface of Images and Verbal Signs/L’interface des images et des signes verbaux, “Interartistic Traits in the “Autoportrait“ of Montaigne/Traits interartistiques dans “L’Autoportrait” de Montaigne”, p.556-p.557, 2004
Castle and Michel de Montaigne Tower
Miraculous icon of the Virgin with three hands and the Child Jesus from the Troyan Monastery on the cover of the Yearbook of the History of Art Department at the New Bulgarian University
- Интерартистични щрихи в „Автопортрета„ на Монтен“, Годишен сборник (2ри том) на Департамента по История на изкуството на НБУ, Изкуство, декември, 2005, [“The Autoportrait” of Montaigne/Traits interartistiques dans “L’Autoportrait” de Montaigne in Art, Yearbook (2nd volume) of the Art History Department of the New Bulgarian University, December, 2005]
https://www.ciela.com/studentski-izsledvanija-ii-izkustvoznanie-i-kulturologija.html