It depicts Nerdrum in a golden robe, standing barefoot under the evening sky, with a paintbrush in his right hand and a palette in his left.

The custom-made robe was also used in Nerdrum's 1997 painting Self-Portrait in Golden Cape, where the artist is depicted with an erected penis.

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.

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.