Self-Portrait

Painted after weeks of illness

In July 1889, Van Gogh suffered a severe attack at the asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence and was unable to paint for several weeks. When he began again in late August and September, one of the subjects he took up was himself.

This self-portrait, painted in September 1889, is now in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. It came to the museum in 1949 as a gift from Paul and Marguerite Gachet, the children of the doctor who looked after Van Gogh in Auvers the following year.

He painted himself often, partly because models were hard to find and cost money. But this portrait feels more than a practical exercise. It is intense, carefully built and almost entirely blue and green.

A face turned three-quarters, looking sideways

His head is turned three-quarters, but his eyes look sideways, as if checking the viewer. The face is the warmest area of the canvas. Orange beard and hair, pink and yellow flesh and green shadows are laid in with short strokes that follow the shape of the cheeks and forehead.

The mouth is closed and set. The shoulders are turned away, and only the head comes round towards us, which gives the pose a guarded quality.

The eyes are pale and watchful

Up close, the eyes are blue-green, the same family of colours as the background. Dark lines mark the brows and lids, and a crease cuts between them. The expression is not relaxed.

Many viewers read anxiety or tension in the look. That is a reasonable response, but it is an interpretation. The facts are simpler: he had just recovered from a crisis, and he chose to paint himself with steady concentration, without any obvious sign of illness.

The background seems to move

Behind the head, the wall is not a flat colour. It is filled with swirling arabesques of pale blue, green and white, painted in long curved strokes that loop around one another like flames or water.

The same rhythm continues into the jacket, so that figure and background are made with the same kind of mark. Only the face, painted with shorter, more controlled touches, stands apart from the movement.

A jacket made of the same blue

The jacket and waistcoat are pale blue-grey, outlined in darker blue. The buttons are small circles drawn with a few strokes. The lapels curve in parallel with the swirls behind, so that the body seems to dissolve into the wall.

Limiting the palette in this way makes the orange of the beard and hair glow by contrast. Blue and orange are complementary colours, and Van Gogh used that pairing deliberately throughout his French years.

Questions about Self-Portrait (1889)

When was it painted?

In September 1889, at the asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.

Where is the original?

Musée d’Orsay, Paris, gift of Paul and Marguerite Gachet in 1949.

How large is it?

65 × 54.2 centimetres, oil on canvas.

Why is it so blue?

Van Gogh restricted the palette to blues and greens so that the orange of his hair and beard, the complementary colour, would stand out.

Sources and image credit

• Musée d’Orsay: Portrait de l’artiste, 1889
• Wikimedia Commons: Google Art Project scan

Faithful public-domain reproduction of Self-Portrait (1889), via Wikimedia Commons (Google Art Project). Detail images are crops of the same historical painting; no reconstruction or upscaling.