Self-portrait 1910

Tadeusz Makowski made this self-portrait, it looks like in oil paint. The brushstrokes are so immediate. It’s like you can feel him figuring things out as he goes, not afraid to let the process show. There's this real tension between the specificity of the figure and the looseness of the paint. The colours are muted, like a faded photograph, but the way he's layered the paint gives it this lively, textured surface. Look closely at the brown area towards the bottom of the canvas. It almost resolves into a hand, but then it dissolves again into pure paint. That's what I love about painting: it's always in flux, always becoming. I am reminded of the German painter, Lovis Corinth who also used a limited palette to create intense self-portraits. Both artists seem to be reaching for something beyond likeness, something more like a feeling.