Self-Portrait with Portrait of Gauguin

Émile Bernard's Self-Portrait with Portrait of Gauguin (1888) is a double document of one of Post-Impressionism's most intense artistic friendships — the canvas showing Bernard himself in the foreground with a sketch of Gauguin visible behind him. The portrait was part of the exchange of self-portraits between Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Bernard in late 1888, a conceptually rich project in which the Synthetist circle collectively represented themselves in a moment of profound artistic solidarity. Bernard and Gauguin's relationship was complex, with both men claiming priority in the development of Synthetism, and this self-portrait documents the moment of their closest collaboration.

Bernard's self-portrait demonstrates the Synthetist style he and Gauguin were jointly developing — simplified forms, flat color areas bounded by dark contours, deliberate rejection of Impressionist atmospheric dissolution. The composition's dual subject — self and other — is handled with conceptual directness that mirrors the theoretical program both artists were pursuing.