Ogata Gekko

A self-portrait—Ogata Gekko—is a rare subject in his output, the artist turning the same observational skills applied to historical figures, beautiful women, and natural subjects on himself. The self-portrait in the Japanese woodblock tradition carried different conventions than Western oil painting: the artist typically depicted in working dress rather than formal attire, the image often appearing as a frontispiece or colophon in published collections. Gekko's self-image would have offered a specific physiognomic record within these conventions.