Every Painter Paints Himself provides a fascinating, new understanding of portraiture. Using visual comparisons, the book reveals that well-known portraits cannot be accurate likenesses of the sitter because they resemble the artist. Five different portraits of Napoleon, for example, by different painters each resembles the artist. Thus iconic images of our culture's leaders are more like poetry than photographs, self-reflections of the artist as the sitter: the artist as a hero, perhaps, or even in some cases embodying the creative and chaotic force of evil.

Simon Abrahams provides short, captivating interpretations of art's masterpieces at www.epph.org