Self Portrait 1931

Tsuguharu Foujita made this self portrait with oil on canvas, and the first thing you notice is how creamy and smooth the surfaces are. The way Foujita blends his tones creates a polished, almost porcelain-like effect that's really striking. I'm drawn to the way he's rendered his face; it's so precise, almost like a photograph, but then you see the brushstrokes and realize it's all carefully constructed by hand. I love that tension between the real and the represented. Take a look at his shirt, for instance, where the light hits just right. The paint seems to glow. It's a little like Vermeer in that sense! Foujita's contemporary, Modigliani, also explored similar themes of identity and representation, though with a very different approach. Modigliani's figures are more elongated and stylized, while Foujita's are grounded in a kind of meticulous observation. Both artists, though, invite us to question what it means to capture a likeness and what kind of truth can be found in paint.