Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat

Painted in Paris in 1887, this self-portrait with straw hat belongs to Van Gogh's intense period of self-examination and stylistic experimentation after his encounter with Impressionism. He painted over twenty self-portraits in Paris between 1886 and 1888, using himself as the most available and economical model while also interrogating his own identity as an artist. The straw hat — a peasant accessory — connects to his idealized image of the artist as laborer. The Metropolitan Museum canvas shows his adoption of the broken, comma-like brushstrokes of Neo-Impressionism, learned from Seurat and Signac, applied with a characteristic personal intensity.

The face and background are constructed from short, parallel strokes of varied color — blues, greens, and oranges placed in near-complementary juxtaposition for maximum vibrancy. The straw hat is rendered in warm yellows and ochres. Van Gogh's technique here is more systematically divisionist than in his later fluid Arles style.