Self-portrait refers to the portraits created by the artists with themselves as the objects.Such themes has been favored by many artists, and have developed abundant expression forms, such as painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, video, digital output and other media. Throughout the art history, mankind has been portraying specific faces; however, self-portrait was not become popular till Renaissance, when the time Humanism started to rise.Since then, artists began their interests in “Mankind” and their eyesight started to turn to themselves, to see the world through their creations and also reveal themselves.

This study focuses on the art of self-portraiture, and explores the self-portraits of this paper as the major structure for the study of "artistry of self-portraits", "developments of self-portraits" and "creation performance of self-portraits". This paper discusses the historical process of the Eastern and Western self-portraits, the evolution of its function and manifestation; also, the artists’ performance and position with the time’s art trend: how to demonstrate, how to position, and how to have the significance of time. By providing the examples of artists’ value and performance method for their self-portrait, the essay will explore the development possibilities for self-portrait.

Last is to examine self-creation with analysis result; to think of the artistry, innovation of self-creation and method to connect contemporary thinking, also on methods to break through in the form of performance. Finally, this essay provides a deeper and wider orientation toward the artworks afterward.