Some self portraits are flamboyant, extravagant, proud, self-declamatory. Others reveal a very uncertain self. This picture is, I think, among the finest self portraits painted in the 20th Century in Australia. It is, of course, the youthful Arthur Boyd, one of our greatest painters. This is the young Arthur Boyd brooding in Mirambeena having read Dostoevsky, filled with conflicted thoughts about the experience of the latter part of the Second World War from which he was divided but whose impact is undeniable. The treatment is loose and vigorous and intense.
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