Focus on this artwork and explore the Reception.
Reviewing a 1999 exhibition of Nerdrum's self-portraits in New York City, Ken Johnson of The New York Times wrote that the paintings overall only succeeded to "envelop the artist in a stale aura of quasi-Rembrandtian soulfulness". One exception was "Self-Portrait as the Prophet of Painting, in which the artist appears life-size in a floor-length, pearl-studded golden robe, brush and palette in his hands, against a romantically barren rocky shore and a twilit sky. In this goofy, over-the-top image, Mr. Nerdrum seems to be having some fun with his own self-glorifying predilections."In 2012, it was selected by the magazine American Artist as one of "7 important paintings of our time". The magazine described it as "boldly presumptuous" and "one of few paintings in Nerdrum's oeuvre devoid of tension, angst, or torment. That is because the artist portrayed here is triumphant—he has overcome the accusations and criticism of his public and stands confidently poised to save art from its so-called imminent doom."
Ken Johnson The New York Times Rembrandt