Portrait of Richard Strauss 1918

Max Liebermann created this portrait of Richard Strauss with oil on canvas using dark greens, browns and blacks, highlighted with white and flesh tones. The more you look, the more you can see the hand of the artist at work, literally! Liebermann, like many figurative painters, probably worked from dark to light, building up the form bit by bit. Just imagine him, squinting at Strauss, then attacking the canvas with loaded brushstrokes. The face seems to emerge, layer by layer, from the murky background. A single stroke of white becomes the highlight on the nose. It’s a total trip of observation, translation, and material transformation. Painters are always in conversation with each other, across time and space, always looking, borrowing, stealing, transforming. Every brushstroke tells a story, not just of the subject, but of the artist's journey, their doubts, their discoveries, their obsessions. Painting is like thinking, but with your hands.