Vincent van Gogh
Paris, Autumn 1887
Oil paint on canvas
This painting is closely related to the work on the right. They share the same bold hatching, added to enhance specific areas: red on the side of Van Gogh’s nose to create a strong shadow, and blue to draw attention to his eyes. This treatment makes every feature bristle with nervous energy and radiate with internal light. Van Gogh’s fellow painter Emile Bernard called these works his ‘fiery faces’. They are the earliest selfÂportraits by Van Gogh to be seen by the public, at an exhibition he organised in a restaurant in the Montmartre district of Paris in November 1887.