Self-Portrait with Japanese Print

Van Gogh's Self-Portrait with Japanese Print, now at the Kunstmuseum Basel, is among the most intellectually explicit of his many self-examinations, staging the question of artistic identity through the juxtaposition of his own face with a Japanese woodblock print on the wall behind him. He and Theo had been collecting Japanese prints since the early 1880s, and by 1887 their collection at the apartment on the Rue Lepic numbered in the hundreds. Van Gogh organized a display of his prints at the café Le Tambourin, wrote theoretical letters to Theo and Bernard about the Japanese influence on modern art, and made three painted copies of Hiroshige prints during his Paris years. The self-portrait with Japanese print makes explicit what many of his other works imply: his artistic allegiance to the Japanese tradition as a model for the relationship between bold color, flat line, and attention to everyday subjects that he wanted to bring to European painting. The Kunstmuseum Basel, which holds this alongside the Still Life with Bloaters and other Van Gogh Paris period works, acquired it as part of its systematic engagement with the Post-Impressionist generation. Basel's early and sustained commitment to Van Gogh means its holdings span his full Paris period, providing an unusually coherent picture of those years of rapid development.

The Japanese print behind the self-portrait provides a patterned, colorful backdrop that contrasts with Van Gogh's own face in the foreground. His Paris self-portrait technique — lighter palette, varied Impressionist-influenced brushwork — is fully visible. The face is rendered with characteristic directness while the print behind is painted with attention to its specific colors and forms.