Self Portrait 1911

Here's a small painted self-portrait by Theo van Doesburg, made in 1911. Look at these forceful brushstrokes of cool pinks, purples, and white shaping the planes of his face. Can you feel the painting coming into being, with each loaded brushmark building the structure of the image, but also creating it's own kind of logic? Imagine van Doesburg staring at himself in the mirror, his face a puzzle of light and shadow. He's trying to understand who he is, not just what he looks like, through a thick impasto of colors. See how he carves out the cheekbones and the brow. The way those marks aren’t just descriptive, they're expressive, almost fierce. It’s like he’s wrestling with his own identity right there on the canvas. I always think of painting as a conversation artists have with themselves and with each other, across time and space. Each stroke is a thought, a feeling, a question asked and answered, or maybe just asked again.