Portrait of the Painter Ludvig Karsten 1912

Here’s Edvard Munch's "Portrait of the Painter Ludvig Karsten," and it looks like it was painted with oil on canvas. What grabs me is how the colors don't quite settle, as if the painting is still in the process of becoming. Munch’s brushstrokes are loose, and you can almost feel him searching for the right way to capture Karsten's likeness. The overall effect is kind of unsettling, right? I mean, look at Karsten's face, there’s an emotional charge there, a tension that’s hard to put into words. It’s like Munch is painting the feeling of a person, not just their appearance. This reminds me a bit of some of Van Gogh's portraits, in the way he used color and brushwork to convey intense emotion. But Munch has his own thing going on, of course. It's a reminder that art is this ongoing conversation. And maybe it is better to leave things unsaid, and let the painting speak for itself.