Location📍 Kröller-Müller Museum → Not on view

Self-Portrait

In February 1886, Vincent van Gogh went to live with his brother Theo in Paris. There, he became acquainted with several prominent painters, including Pissarro, Toulouse-Lautrec, Signac, Gauguin, Seurat, and Bernard. Inspired by their artistic work, he began experimenting with diverse styles alongside bright, light colours.

During this period, he held the ambition to become a professional portrait painter to earn a living. Due to the absence of models, he painted numerous self-portraits. He justified this practice by stating that if he could manage to paint the coloration of his own head, which presented some difficulty, he would surely be able to paint the heads of other men and women as well.

Van Gogh was not interested in rendering photographic portraits, believing that a portrait must also express something of the subject’s emotional state. In this specific self-portrait, the colours remain fairly subdued, dominated by soft blue and green tints. By contrast, his rapid brushstrokes are exuberant, particularly in the background, giving the masterpiece a lively and dynamic character.