Self-Portrait (van Gogh)

The artist stares out against a background of swirling, pale blue-green that ripples around his head like a current, his suit blue, his hair and beard burning red, his gaze fixed and intense. Van Gogh painted this self-portrait near the end of his stay in the Saint-Remy asylum, the agitated brushwork of the background echoing the turmoil within. Now in the Musee d'Orsay, it is among the most searching of his many self-portraits - the troubled painter confronting himself with unflinching honesty, his very features seeming to vibrate with the restless energy of his hand.