science

Self-Portrait in a Red Coat

Self-Portrait in a Red Coat is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Self-Portrait in a Red Coat rather than just read about it. In short: Self-Portrait in a Red Coat (Portuguese: Autorretrato) is an oil on canvas painting by the Portuguese painter Aurélia de Souza (1866–1922). Painted around 1900 in Paris, it measures 45 cm high by 36 cm wide.

Key takeaways

Self-Portrait in a Red Coat belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Self-Portrait in a Red Coat to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Self-Portrait in a Red Coat from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Self-Portrait in a Red Coat (Portuguese: Autorretrato) is an oil on canvas painting by the Portuguese painter Aurélia de Souza (1866–1922). Painted around 1900 in Paris, it measures 45 cm high by 36 cm wide. One of the most recognised of paintings by a Portuguese woman artist, it is held in the collection of the Soares dos Reis National Museum in Porto.

History De Souza painted several self-portraits during her life. They are usually identified by the features that accompany the portrait. For example, this portrait is known, for obvious reasons, as the red-coat self-portrait, while also well known are her Self-Portrait with Black Ribbon, and the Saint Anthony self-portrait in which she dresses as the saint. Over the years the painting has undergone a reassessment. No photograph exists of it prior to 1936, when it occupied an insignificant place in an exhibition of De Souza's work held in the Fine Arts Salon of the Palácio de Cristal in Porto. Within the same exhibition, the painting Self-Portrait with Black Ribbon occupied a dominant position. By 2021, however, when the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation organized an exhibition of Portuguese women's art from 1900 to 2020, called All I Want (Tudo O Que Eu Quero), the red-coat self-portrait appeared on the cover of the catalogue, together with a 1997 painting by Helena Almeida. In 2022, at an exhibition of De Souza’s work in the Soares dos Reis National Museum, reproductions of the painting were available for purchase in the museum shop, as were household items bearing its image. The catalogue cover was of the self-portrait. According to the museum, the artwork now attracts international recognition. It is characterized as an asset of "national interest that merits special protection".

Description The widespread recognition that the painting now has, over a century after it was produced, can to a certain extent be attributed to the greater availability of colour photographs in magazines and newspapers and, more recently, the growth of the internet. The vibrant red colour of the coat now attracts the attention the painting did not receive before colour photography, enabling observers to appreciate the way it defied late-19th century conventions and the fact that it was advanced for its time. De Souza's oval face is positioned at the exact centre of the composition and the contrast of her pale face with the red coat makes it appear as a mask. It is known that De Souza did use photographs to prepare for her painting and it is possible that she followed that practice for this self-portrait. Indeed, the historian, Filipa Lowndes Vicente, has speculated on whether her self-portraits would have been possible before the invention of photography. In the painting, she wears a suffocating collar, similar to her other self-portraits. The eye is attracted to the design of the collar and the broach she wears, making her neck the focal point of the painting.

Appreciation In his book, Art in Portugal in the 19th Century, José-Augusto França considers it to be one of the "greatest portraits that Portuguese painting has offered us to this day – the most beautiful self-portrait in Portuguese painting". In the catalogue of the exhibition From Drawing from Nature: An Inquiry into the Portuguese Portrait, held at the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon in 2018, Anísio Franco refers to De Souza's painting as "the most disturbing and unusual self-portrait in universal painting". Maria João Lello Ortigão de Oliveira (2006) commented on the "disturbing strangeness contained in the universe of a single gaze, [to which] no one has yet been able to answer".

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Self-Portrait in a Red Coat

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Self-Portrait in a Red Coat claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Self-Portrait in a Red Coat before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Self-Portrait in a Red Coat ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Self-Portrait in a Red Coat

In research: Self-Portrait in a Red Coat appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Self-Portrait in a Red Coat in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Self-Portrait in a Red Coat is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1900 paintings, Portuguese paintings, Self-portraits, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Self-Portrait in a Red Coat outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Self-Portrait in a Red Coat in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Self-Portrait in a Red Coat means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Self-Portrait in a Red Coat out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Self-Portrait in a Red Coat in simple terms?

Why does Self-Portrait in a Red Coat matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Self-Portrait in a Red Coat?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Self-Portrait in a Red Coat.