Self-Portrait

Lovis Corinth advocated for an aggressive, intensely competitive approach to life, going so far as to offer this advice: “Use all your might to achieve your highest goal. . . . use your greater strength to push your rivals against the wall until they can no longer gasp.” Then, in 1911, Corinth had a stroke and suddenly found his physical powers greatly diminished. After that he made many self-portraits, showing his own frailty with unflinching honesty. When an artist requested a photograph of Corinth, presumably to make a caricature for a satirical magazine, Corinth instead sent him this drawing. Was he sardonically presenting his own features to suggest that nature had already perpetrated the distortions of a caricaturist?