215 Van Gogh, Self-Portrait Dedicated to Paul Gauguin
215 Van Gogh, Self-Portrait Dedicated to Paul Gauguin
Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker provide a description, historical perspective, and analysis of Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait Dedicated to Paul Gauguin.
Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait Dedicated to Paul Gauguin, 1888, oil on canvas, 24 × 19-11/16 inches, (Fogg, Harvard Art Museums).
This self portrait, where the artist represents himself with monastic severity was painted for Paul Gauguin as part of swap between the artists. The other painting shown in the video above is Paul Gauguin’s the heroic fugitive, Jean Valjean, in Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables. Gauguin’s painting also contains a portrait of Emile Bernard that was painted not by Gauguin but by Bernard within Gauguin’s painting.
The following is a letter by Van Gogh to his brother Theo about the painting exchange with Gauguin dated October 7, 1888:
My dear Theo,
Many thanks for your letter. How glad I am for Gauguin; I shall not try to find words to tell you – let’s be of good heart.
I have just received the portrait of Gauguin by himself and the portrait of Bernard by Bernard and in the background of the portrait of Gauguin there is Bernard’s on the wall, and vice versa.
The Gauguin is of course remarkable, but I very much like Bernard’s picture. It is just the inner vision of a painter, a few abrupt tones, a few dark lines, but it has the distinction of a real, real Manet.
The Gauguin is more studied, carried further. That, along with what he says in his letter, gave me absolutely the impression of its representing a prisoner. Not a shadow of gaiety. Absolutely nothing of the flesh, but one can confidently put that down to his determination to make a melancholy effect, the flesh in the shadows has gone a dismal blue.
So now at last I have a chance to compare my painting with what the comrades are doing. My portrait, which I am sending to Gauguin in exchange, holds its own, I am sure of that. I have written to Gauguin in reply to his letter that if I might be allowed to stress my own personality in a portrait, I had done so in trying to convey in my portrait not only myself but an impressionist in general, had conceived it as the portrait of a bonze, a simple worshiper of the eternal Buddha.
And when I put Gauguin’s conception and my own side by side, mine is as grave, but less despairing. What Gauguin’s portrait says to me before all things is that he must not go on like this, he must become again the richer Gauguin of the “Negresses.”
I am very glad to have these two portraits, for they finally represent the comrades at this stage; they will not remain like that, they will come back to a more serene life.
And I see clearly that the duty laid upon me is to do everything I can to lessen our poverty.
No good comes the way in this painter’s job. I feel that he is more Millet than I, but I am more Diaz then he, and like Diaz I am going to try to please the public, so that a few pennies may come into our community. I have spen