All his life, Lovis Corinth (1858-1925), like Rembrandt, painted self-portraits. That the artist took himself as model should not be ascribed to egoism but rather to practicality. The model was always there, never tired before the artist, and never needed to be paid.Corinth, in our self-portrait at the age of fifty, surveys himself objectively. His eyes are fixed, clean, dispassionate. The strokes of the ink-laden brush catch a brief, still moment of concentrated appraisal in the fury of creation. Corinth became, for himself, an object.His eyes, visual perception, were the basis for Corinth's art. He had no conscious interest in emphasizing his emotions. The world he painted was outside himself. Corinth, in fact, thought of himself as an Impressionist and had the greatest contempt for expressionism. Nevertheless, toward the end of his life, Corinth's vigorous colors and animated brush-stroke approached the work of Nolde and Kokoschka and he came to be greatly admired by that very movement which he decried. The swift declination of the left elbow and the modeling of face and neck, in this portrait at mid-life, forecast his later development.Referenced Work of Art

1. Lovis Corinth, German, 1858-1925. Self-Portrait, 1908. Brush and ink on board, 27” x 23”. The Lillian Z. Turnblad Memorial Fund, 1962, 62.10.