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Joseph Roulin Sitting on a Chair by van Gogh
An 1888 oil on canvas portrait, Joseph Roulin Sitting on a Chair, by Vincent van Gogh (1853-90), the Dutch post-impressionist artist. Painted in August in Arles, France. Roulin was the artist's local postman, and the two became good friends, with Vincent painting him several times and members of his family. In a letter to his sister Wil, the artist describes the postman as:
Right now I'm working on the portrait of the postman in his uniform of dark blue with yellow. A head a bit like Socrates, almost no nose, a high forehead, bald crown, small grey eyes, highly coloured plump cheeks, a big pepper-and-salt beard, large ears. The man is a well known republican and socialist, argues quite well and knows a great deal. His wife gave birth to a child today, so he's in fine fettle and beaming with satisfaction. (LW 5D)
(Boston Museum of Fine Arts)
Bibliography
- McQuillan, Melissa & Van Gogh, Vincent. Van Gogh . Thames & Hudson, 1989.
- Van Gogh, Vincent & de Leeuw, Ronald & Pomerans, Arnold J. The Letters of Vincent van Gogh . Penguin Classics, 1998.
- Walther, Ingo F. & Metzger, Rainer. Van Gogh. The Complete Paintings. TASCHEN, 2020.
External Links
License & Copyright
First published on WikiArt.org and republished.
Original image by Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Uploaded by Mark Cartwright, published on 17 March 2022. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Public Domain. This item is in the public domain, and can be used, copied, and modified without any restrictions. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.
