Portrait of a Man

Painted at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in 1889, this portrait of an unidentified man belongs to the relatively small group of figure paintings Van Gogh made during his confinement, when his access to models was limited to the institution's staff and residents. He maintained his conviction, established in Nuenen and carried through Arles, that portrait painting was among the most important work an artist could do — more important, he wrote, than landscape, because the human face was the most complex and meaningful thing in the visible world. The identity of this sitter remains unknown: possibly an asylum orderly, a fellow patient, or a local person who came to the institution. Van Gogh painted him with the same serious attention he gave to the postman Roulin and to Dr Gachet, treating the anonymous institutional encounter as a subject of genuine dignity. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

The cool blue-green background contrasts with the warm tonality of the face, a device Van Gogh used repeatedly in Saint-Rémy to bring sitters forward. Broad, curving strokes animate the coat while finer marks describe facial structure.