Self-Portrait

1889

Oil on canvas, 65 × 54 cm. Musée d'Orsay, Paris

The painter turns three-quarters toward us against a pale blue-green ground. His steady, guarded gaze is set against a background in constant motion.

Swirling arabesques fill the background and repeat the waves of his hair and beard. The pattern turns an ordinary backdrop into a carrier of energy and feeling.
Look at the clothes: a suit, not his usual work jacket.
Green and pale turquoise surround the orange of the hair and beard.
The face is gaunt and hard-edged, and the eyes have an intense, anxious look.
Dr. Gachet's son and daughter, Paul and Marguerite, donated it in 1949.

Over roughly a decade he produced upward of forty self-portraits, counting paintings and drawings. He wrote to his sister that he wanted a deeper likeness than a photograph gives.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · PD-Art