The self-aware image

the long version

Arguing that panel painting, from its origins in the Early Renaissance, was a "self-aware image," Stoichita demonstrates that the artists and their art were often the theme of the painting. He also examines the mirror effect and other "splitting" strategies such as the mise en abyme and intertextual play. By analyzing these modalities of self-reflection, Stoichita offers a new and unexpected view of a period and the art it produced once considered to have been definitively classified.