Self-Portrait with a Glass 1907

Lovis Corinth painted this self-portrait with a glass using oil on canvas, but the exact date is unknown. Corinth's approach to mark-making here feels almost urgent. The colors, a mix of fleshy pinks, browns, and muted grays, are dabbed and swirled onto the canvas with a kind of restless energy. It makes you think about artmaking as a process of constant searching, a dialogue between the artist and the canvas. The texture is amazing. You can practically feel the ridges and valleys of the paint. Look at the way he's rendered the light catching his chest, all those little strokes of contrasting color. It's visceral, almost confrontational. And the background, that hazy, undefined space, it pushes him forward, making his presence even more immediate. It puts me in mind of Rembrandt, another artist who wasn’t afraid to look unflinchingly at himself. Ultimately art isn't about answers, it's about the questions.