Joker's Painted Portrait with Eyes Closed — Print & Oil Painting

Nothing here is laughing. The eyes are almost shut, the head is level, the shoulders are square, and the painted red mouth sits closed over an expression that reads as tired more than anything else. It is a sitting rather than a scene, and the artist has treated the character exactly as a portrait painter would treat a client.

A broad pale halo has been rubbed into the red-brown ground with a rag, brightest just above the crown and fading out towards the corners. It has no source and no shape. It is there for the oldest reason in portraiture: to detach a head from a wall.

The makeup is described as material. White laid on thick and slightly uneven, with the brush marks left in it; two red arcs for brows; two green diamonds under the eyes, point down; a small red bulb on the nose; a red mouth painted well beyond the lip line and starting to smudge at one corner. Green hair falls to the collar in heavy blocked-in strokes.

The clothes are painted with the same directness and carry all the saturation: a vermilion jacket with wide lapels, a marigold waistcoat, a deep green shirt buttoned to the throat. Along the bottom edge the picture is left unfinished, with the paint thinning to bare ground and a few runs escaping downward.

Part of our DC Universe collection, beside the same costume worn in the rain with a cigarette and a close crop of the same makeup against gold and blood.