Self portrait 1906

This is a self-portrait by Theo van Doesburg, painted in oils, and the first thing that grabs you is the limited palette, all these earthy browns and ochres, like he’s pulled the colors straight from the soil. Look at how the paint’s been layered, thick in some spots, especially around the face, giving it a real sculptural feel. You can almost feel the texture, the way the brush must have dragged across the canvas. The way the paint cracks over the surface really adds to that material quality. I am really drawn to the hand, held up in a gesture of creation or contemplation, it feels unfinished, the lines blurred. Later in his career, Van Doesburg would leave this all behind. He became known for his abstract geometric compositions in primary colors. But I see hints of Mondrian here, another Dutch painter interested in distilling form and meaning. It makes you think about the journey an artist takes, always experimenting, always searching, and how art is this constant dialogue.