Q2 (c)

I have still in my possession a painting by the Tortoise – a self-portrait he painted not long after the Takeda days. It shows a thin young man with spectacles, sitting in his shirt-sleeves in a cramped, shadowy room, surrounded by easels and rickety furniture, his face caught on one side by the light coming from the window. The earnestness and timidity written on the face are certainly true to the man I remember, and in this respect, the Tortoise has been remarkably honest; looking at the portrait, you would probably take him to be the sort you could confidently elbow aside for an empty tram seat. But then each of us, it seems, has his own special conceits. If the Tortoise’s modesty forbade him to disguise his timid nature, it did not prevent him attributing to himself a kind of lofty intellectual air – which I for one have no recollection of. But then to be fair, I cannot recall any colleague who could paint a self-portrait with absolute honesty; however accurately one may fill in the surface details of one’s mirror reflection, the personality represented rarely comes near the truth as others would see it.
An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro. Reproduced by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd

In what ways does this excerpt reflect the concerns and aesthetic qualities of Ishiguro’s novel?
In your response, make close reference to the excerpt and to your prescribed text.