Self-portrait (June)

'Self-portrait dedicated to Paul Gauguin', 1888.

Visiting Van Gogh, we notice Rembrandt gazing over his shoulder, test of intensities of mood. What does a selfie mean to anyone, outside those who know the portraitist? Just another face in the crowd. While here is someone in some act of rebellion against the literalness of cameras. For humans, there’s no end of fascination with the human face. Inscrutable as January, radiant as June. Only, what is a portrait saying? More ink’s been spilt on this question than is measurable, and paint, pencil, crayon, emulsion. Pixels are innumerable as grains of sand and still time time is running out.

Self-portrait (May)

'Self-portrait', 1887

Visiting Van Gogh. It’s quick impasto: this is the shape loneliness takes in the morning. It’s creases of white re-lined: this is the dread of time hurting, laughing, walking away, ending. It’s industrial strength colours wriggling from tubes: this is the proof no-one’s paying for a face like that. It’s the fleck and turn: his eyes checking every inch of light and darkness, those are brushstrokes that were his eyes, outstaring us all. It’s stroke stroke: the torrent of effect a garden hedge in May. It’s everything a photograph cannot do: this is a face free of every cameraman alive.