Description
Self-Portrait presents Goya frontally with curly hair, making the face the center of this concentrated drawing. The youthful appearance belongs to a different mode of self-representation from his later top-hatted profile. Here the direct encounter invites attention to the features of a person looking back rather than to the signs of a public role.
Made with brush and carbon-black ink around 1796, the drawing gives the artist’s likeness a searching immediacy. The medium allows dark marks and lighter passages to describe the head without the uniform finish of a formal painted portrait. Its appeal lies in the closeness of the encounter, where the artist becomes his own subject and the act of observing a face also becomes a way of considering himself.
Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the Goya collection.
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