The painting Torquato Tasso (2004) by Heribert C. Ottersbach centers a seated figure at a desk consumed with the task in front of him within an ambiguously located office. Describing his work at the time, Ottersbach developed four archetypes of artists influenced by figures both real and fictional meant to explore the artist's self-image and their changing role in society. Pulling from sources in literature, film and mythology, Ottersbach notes Don Quixote as a "naïve idealist", the lonely observing "stalker" from Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 titular film, and Jason, the Greek hero and leader of the Argonauts, as an "active, political component." In comparison to Jason, the "Torquato Tasso" type is based on the Italian poet of the 16th century who Ottersbach interprets as "the artist of conviction… caught between the demands of genius, conformity and social reality." [1]