Vincent van Gogh
Arles, Early September 1888
Oil paint on canvas
The two paintings on this wall are not self-portraits in the conventional sense. However, both works played an important role in Van Gogh’s fashioning of his image. In this portrait of the Belgian painter Eugène Boch, who posed for him in Arles, Van Gogh sought to convey his image of an ideal artist. Mirroring language he used to describe himself, he wrote to Theo that, with this work, he hoped to
‘do the portrait of an artist friend who dreams great dreams, who works as the nightingale sings, because that’s his nature. This man will be blond. I’d like to put in the painting my appreciation, my love that I have for him… Behind the head – instead of painting the dull wall of the mean room, I paint the infinite.’
Set against Van Gogh’s favoured motif, a starry sky, the portrait can be seen as a projection of Van Gogh’s own artistic identity.