Madame Roulin

Madame Roulin at the Saint Louis Art Museum was painted by Gauguin in November 1888 during his turbulent stay with Van Gogh in Arles. Augustine Roulin, wife of the postman Joseph Roulin whose family Van Gogh painted obsessively, sat for both artists during those weeks. The parallels and contrasts between Gauguin's and Van Gogh's versions of the same sitters are a remarkable document of two very different artistic personalities confronting the same subjects. Gauguin's treatment is characteristically flatter and more decorative than Van Gogh's emotionally charged versions — he was already moving toward the Synthetist approach of cloisonism that would define his mature style.

Gauguin uses flat areas of color delineated by firm contour lines rather than Van Gogh's broken, directional brushwork — the face is rendered with smooth transitions of warm and cool tone, the background with a flat, decorative pattern. The influence of his study of Japanese prints and medieval stained glass is apparent in the simplified color areas.