The Desperate Man (Self-portrait)

A young man lunges toward us, eyes wide and white, both hands clutching at his own hair in a paroxysm of alarm or anguish. Courbet painted this self-portrait early in his career, casting himself as the very image of Romantic intensity - startled, vivid, almost confrontational. Now in a private collection, the Desperate Man has become one of his most recognizable works, the artist staring out in theatrical extremity. It shows the young Courbet as both subject and showman, seizing the viewer by the eyes with a face of raw, exaggerated feeling.