Self-portrait with a Winter Hat

Johannes Võerahansu may well be the artist with the biggest number of self-portraits in Estonian art history. In national art collections alone, there are 14 self-portraits by Võerahansu, not to mention those in private collections. These are, as a rule, more or less classical self-portraits: Võerahansu does not allow for playfulness or different role fantasies, and there are no grimaces or gestures. Occasionally, however, he comes up with some unexpected detail: he may, for example, put a red scarf around his head, wear a red beach robe, or open his mouth. His alternating headgear catches the viewer’s eye the most: he paints himself wearing a hat or a beret, and in this particular case – a slightly humorous winter headwear. He has used a pipe as an accessory in other self-portraits, too.

It is difficult to say how Võerahansu developed such an interest in depicting himself. For him, self-portraits do not seem to be the genre for experimenting with different psychological states: he is always calm, looking the viewer straight in the eye, with an air of invariability, even though he paints himself through the years. At the same time, Võerahansu pays sufficient attention to brushwork and choice of colour, which in this particular case are dynamic and improvisational:  instead of academic accuracy he is rather looking to convey a mood and is experimenting with matching various hues.