Vincent van Gogh
From July 4th until July 27th in DailyArt we will present pieces from the magnificent collection of Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, Netherlands. Today we start with this beautiful van Gogh, please enjoy!
Joseph Roulin worked as the postmaster at the station in Arles. Van Gogh went there frequently to send paintings to his brother Theo in the Netherlands, and they became close friends. In a letter to Theo he describes him as “a man who is not bitter, not melancholy, not perfect, not happy and also not always perfectly honest. But such a good fellow, so wise, so feeling and so faithful.”
Between August 1888 and April 1889 he painted six consecutive portraits of Joseph, three of which had flowers in the background. In this colorful painting he chose summer flowers. The poppies, cornflowers, daisies, and roses are painted fairly precisely, in contrast to Joseph’s face and full beard with the stylized curls. Here, Van Gogh has applied the paint with a quick, fluent brushstroke.