Self-Portrait c. 1920

Antonio Mancini's self-portrait is a flurry of brushstrokes dancing on paper. It’s like the artist is trying to capture not just his likeness, but a fleeting thought, a half-formed feeling. I imagine Mancini standing before a mirror, brush in hand, wrestling with his own image. See how the colors swirl—browns, blacks, and creams—layering on top of each other, building up to a face that’s both there and not there. The paint is applied in thick strokes, almost like he's sculpting with pigment. There's a frantic energy here, a desire to pin down something elusive. The dark lines around the faces could be read as dark energy, or the unknown space around the artist. It makes me think about other artists like Auerbach, who also used paint to dig into the human condition. Mancini's not just painting a face, he's painting a moment of self-reflection, the kind that all artists experience when staring into the abyss of the self. It's like he's saying, "Here I am, in all my messy, complicated glory."