The self-portraits he created while living in Arles are rich and vibrant with blue, yellow and red. Art historians assume that masters like Rembrandt and Van Gogh used a mirror to paint their own self-images. However, Vincent did not stick strictly with this practice. The background includes a colorful woodblock print to the figure's left and an easel behind him to his right. No other self-portrait, except for Painter on his Way to Work , has objects in the background. Two of the self-portraits by Van Gogh show the artist holding a palette and a fistful of brushes, the tools of his trade.
Self-Portrait as a Painter , has Van Gogh seated, with his easel to the forefront. It is one of the final Van Gogh's Paris self-portraits. In "Self-Portrait" at Saint-Remy , the figure clutches his paint-filled palette and brushes in front of him. And then, something practical I can do is portrait painting. Van Gogh did not have money to pay models to pose for portraits nor did he have many people commissioning him to do portraits, so Van Gogh painted his own portrait.
Van Gogh did not see portrait painting as merely a means to an end; he also believed that portrait painting would help him develop his skills as an artist. In a letter to his brother Theo dated September 16, , Van Gogh writes about a self-portrait he painted and dedicated to his friend and fellow artist Paul Gauguin,.
His right ear is bandaged in the portrait though in reality the wound was to his left ear; the discrepancy is due to his painting while looking at a mirror image. During his two year stay in the City of Light between and , under the influence of the Impressionist color scheme Van Gogh lightened his palette; however, very soon reserved he started using light colors only to express particular moods.
Oil on cardboard mounted on panel, Height: Collection Detroit Institute of Arts. This artwork features Van Gogh wearing a blue cap lined with black fur and a green overcoat, with a bandage covering his ear. However, the two quarreled often and were unable to function. On 23 December during one of their arguments, Van Gogh became violent and threatened Gauguin with a razor , but then injured himself and cut off one part of his left ear.
The following morning after Gauguin returned, he encountered the police at the house, and traces of blood splattered in every room. Van Gogh cut an artery in his neck and was in an awful state after losing so much blood, so he was transferred to the hospital. The painter stated he had no recollection of what happened. Throughout his life, Van Gogh was tormented with similar states caused by acute paranoia. Since he lacked money to pay the models, the painter became his own best sitter.
Medium oil on canvas. Collection Metropolitan Museum of Art. This astonishing painting was the last one the artist produced in Paris , the city that exhausted him both mentally and physically. Collection Van Gogh Museum.
This work is one of the very last self—portraits Van Gogh painted. After he was interned at the asylum, the artist was not that interested in figurative painting and focused more on the surrounding landscapes.
However, in July Van Gogh suffered a severe breakdown while painting in the fields near the asylum. Exhausted by the experience, he withdrew entirely to his studio, refusing to go out. Without models, the simplest way to develop as a portrait artist is to paint oneself, since this only requires the use of a mirror.
On other occasions he made self-portraits to try out various technical explorations, such as colour contrasts or brushwork.
These less ambitious works were sometimes more in the way of studies. This helps to explain why 27 of the 35 self-portraits date from his Paris period, when he was experimenting and developing his technique—moving away from the dark hues of his Dutch years to the Van Gogh we now know and love, with his exuberant colouring. But the Paris self-portraits also include some very fine examples.
Read more from Martin's Adventures with Van Gogh blog here. Adventures with Van Gogh. Adventures with Van Gogh Adventures with Van Gogh is a weekly blog by Martin Bailey, our long-standing correspondent and expert on the artist.
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