Portrait of Joseph Roulin

Joseph Roulin was a postal employee in Arles, and van Gogh painted him for the first time in the summer of 1888, resplendent in his blue, gold-trimmed postal uniform and cap and seated at a table set against a light blue background. The artist was fascinated by Roulin's physiognomy. The face, which he deemed Socratic because of the shortened nose, was flushed with a high coloration van Gogh attributed to heavy drinking and was garlanded with an abundant salt-and-pepper beard. But van Gogh was also taken with the man's character. Roulin was an ardent socialist, vehement in his support of the left wing of French republican politics. Perhaps more importantly, for the lonely and isolated artist, Roulin was also the devoted father of a large family. Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo of his excitement about "the modern portrait," a picture that renders character not by the imitation of the sitter's appearance but through the independent, vivid life of color. Pursuing this goal in the portraits he painted of Roulin, van Gogh was influenced by the artists Honoré Daumier (for his expressive and caricature lines) and Eugène Delacroix (for his use of color). Another, more immediate, influence may have been Paul Gauguin, who worked with van Gogh in Arles in the fall of 1888. Gauguin urged less dependence on observation and more reliance on memory and intuition. If you ever heard of Movember this is our contribution to the cause. (If you haven't, it is an annual event involving the growing of moustaches during the month of November to raise awareness of men's health issues, such as prostate cancer and other male cancers, and associated charities).