Self-Portrait at the Easel 1922

Lovis Corinth made this self-portrait with oil on canvas, sometime between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I’m really drawn to the way he’s built this image up, layer upon layer, with these chunky strokes. There’s a real materiality to the painting, you can almost feel the texture of the paint itself. Look at the way he’s rendered his face: it's all these dabs and dashes of ochre and yellow, like he’s sculpting with the brush. It’s not about realism, but about capturing a sense of being, of the act of seeing himself. And that blue highlight on his neck? Such a bold, confident stroke, it just pops! Corinth reminds me a bit of someone like Philip Guston, both unafraid to get messy and to really push the boundaries of representation. His work invites us to see the world not as a fixed image, but as an ongoing process, a constant becoming.