1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,688
(piano music playing)

2
00:00:05,688 --> 00:00:07,136
Steven: Usually, when you
look at a self-portrait,

3
00:00:07,136 --> 00:00:10,403
you see an artist staring
directly at himself in a mirror,

4
00:00:10,403 --> 00:00:12,995
but in Self-Portrait
with Death by Bรถcklin,

5
00:00:12,995 --> 00:00:16,437
he seems not so much to
be looking, as listening.

6
00:00:16,437 --> 00:00:19,237
Female: That menacing figure of death is

7
00:00:19,237 --> 00:00:20,666
not only playing the violin,

8
00:00:20,666 --> 00:00:23,902
but seems to be whispering
something in his ear.

9
00:00:23,902 --> 00:00:26,101
Steven: He seems ecstatic,
where you can see clearly

10
00:00:26,101 --> 00:00:29,636
the skull, with all of its teeth,
that seems to be smiling demonically.

11
00:00:29,636 --> 00:00:30,837
Female: Grinning, I would say.

12
00:00:30,837 --> 00:00:33,170
Steven: Yeah, eager and rather excited.

13
00:00:33,170 --> 00:00:36,207
We see that claw-like hand of bones

14
00:00:36,207 --> 00:00:37,491
that clutches the bow.

15
00:00:37,491 --> 00:00:39,685
and the violin is being played,

16
00:00:39,685 --> 00:00:42,469
but it's being played on
a single remaining string,

17
00:00:42,469 --> 00:00:45,636
as if Bรถcklin has only
that one string to go.

18
00:00:45,636 --> 00:00:47,424
It seems so final.

19
00:00:47,424 --> 00:00:50,135
Female: Death knows he's won here.

20
00:00:50,135 --> 00:00:52,635
Steven: Art outlasts
the life of the artist

21
00:00:52,635 --> 00:00:54,802
and so there's something
very self-conscious about

22
00:00:54,802 --> 00:00:57,688
the act of making a work
of art and especially about

23
00:00:57,688 --> 00:00:59,122
making a self-portrait.

24
00:00:59,122 --> 00:01:02,490
Female: That sense of death
is present in portraits,

25
00:01:02,490 --> 00:01:05,990
generally, not just in self-portraits.

26
00:01:05,990 --> 00:01:09,157
Portraits can make the dead alive,

27
00:01:09,157 --> 00:01:11,370
so I think often when
we look at portraits,

28
00:01:11,370 --> 00:01:13,789
we have a sense of going back in time

29
00:01:13,789 --> 00:01:16,038
of looking at someone who has lived.

30
00:01:16,038 --> 00:01:18,523
But you're right, it's
certainly more poignant

31
00:01:18,523 --> 00:01:22,153
in self-portraits, especially
in the way that Bรถcklin

32
00:01:22,153 --> 00:01:24,824
has collapsed the space here.

33
00:01:24,824 --> 00:01:27,205
Steven: The personification
of death, that skeleton,

34
00:01:27,205 --> 00:01:29,489
is so intimate. It's so close.

35
00:01:29,489 --> 00:01:31,324
You said "whispering in his ear",

36
00:01:31,324 --> 00:01:34,092
it's almost as if Bรถcklin can
literally feel his breath,

37
00:01:34,092 --> 00:01:35,288
if there were such a thing.

38
00:01:35,288 --> 00:01:38,204
Female: The artist, himself,
is very close to us.

39
00:01:38,204 --> 00:01:40,931
His palette is half in our space.

40
00:01:40,931 --> 00:01:42,370
Steven: And you see the raw paint,

41
00:01:42,370 --> 00:01:45,323
it's a depiction of paint made of itself,

42
00:01:45,323 --> 00:01:47,204
that speaks to the lie of painting.

43
00:01:47,204 --> 00:01:49,704
The raw materials that
make up this painting

44
00:01:49,704 --> 00:01:51,357
are made present.

45
00:01:51,357 --> 00:01:52,324
Female: Made honest.

46
00:01:52,324 --> 00:01:54,189
Steven: Made honest. That's right.

47
00:01:54,189 --> 00:01:57,952
Stripping away the veils of
our life, the veils of society.

48
00:01:58,029 --> 00:02:00,648
The palette and the raw
depiction of the paint

49
00:02:00,648 --> 00:02:03,065
is a kind of reminder of the essential.

50
00:02:03,065 --> 00:02:06,566
Bรถcklin is showing us
both the flesh and blood

51
00:02:06,566 --> 00:02:08,731
representation of the artist of the man

52
00:02:08,731 --> 00:02:11,647
clothed in the fashions of his day,

53
00:02:11,647 --> 00:02:13,812
but then he also shows us this skeleton,

54
00:02:13,812 --> 00:02:16,647
in a sense this essence
of what he will become.

55
00:02:16,647 --> 00:02:19,647
The painting as a whole
is beautifully manipulated

56
00:02:19,647 --> 00:02:21,800
to show us the illusion of these figures,

57
00:02:21,800 --> 00:02:24,121
but then it's also laid bare.

58
00:02:24,121 --> 00:02:27,230
Female: The idea of man returning to dust,

59
00:02:27,230 --> 00:02:28,647
from which he was created.

60
00:02:28,647 --> 00:02:30,313
That's what I was reminded of when you

61
00:02:30,313 --> 00:02:33,200
talked about the materiality of the paint.

62
00:02:33,200 --> 00:02:35,200
Steven: He's holding
a rag under his thumb.

63
00:02:35,200 --> 00:02:36,726
Female: To wipe his brush.

64
00:02:36,726 --> 00:02:37,814
Steven: To wipe his brush,

65
00:02:37,814 --> 00:02:39,897
but the way that death wipes us all away.

66
00:02:39,897 --> 00:02:42,230
There is this wonderful way in which

67
00:02:42,230 --> 00:02:45,834
the act of painting is
echoed by the way in which

68
00:02:45,834 --> 00:02:47,600
death transforms us.

69
00:02:47,600 --> 00:02:51,600
(piano music playing)