Intent

Attempt a realistic, unidealized self-likeness using a fisheye lens/composition the artist had been testing in a couple of other paintings around the same time, partly inspired by Dali's late distorted-body Christ paintings -- pursued as a formal problem (does the distortion work, can it be pulled off) rather than for any devotional or symbolic reason.

Vision analyses

• Aug 19, 2026claude-sonnet-5

  Extreme fisheye distortion places the artist's head and shoulders in dramatic close foreground, tilted upward toward the viewer, while a wide-angle sweep of green hillside, a winding road, and two bodies of water curves away below. San Francisco appears as a distant cluster of buildings across the water with a thin red structure suggesting the Golden Gate Bridge. A diagonal dirt/paved road cuts in from the bottom-left corner. The figure wears a near-black shirt that reads as a near-void against the surrounding saturated green and blue. The face is comparatively tightly modeled and resolved; the landscape, while vivid, shows flatter, less atmospheric modeling in places. Direct, straight-on eye contact with the viewer. Overall palette is saturated blue-greens and blues with warm flesh tones concentrated in the face.