Self-Portrait 1920

This is a self-portrait painted by Ludvig Karsten, probably in the early 20th century, using oil on canvas. Look at the way the paint seems to dance across the surface, a flurry of brushstrokes that somehow coalesce into a figure. The colours are washed out, like a memory fading at the edges, but the thick impasto, especially on the face, brings a raw physicality. Notice the way the red paint is applied in little jabs and stabs around the eyes and mouth, giving the face a haunted expression. There's a tension here, between the dissolution of form and the sheer materiality of the paint. It’s like he's both present and absent at the same time. Karsten reminds me a little of Edvard Munch. Like Munch, he was interested in using painting to explore the darker side of human experience, the anxieties and alienation of modern life. Karsten’s painting is a reminder that art is always an act of translation, an attempt to capture something fleeting and ephemeral in a fixed form.