O Carteiro (The Postman) - Vincent van Gogh

 

O Carteiro (The Postman) - Vincent van Gogh
Barnes Foundation, Filadélfia, Estados Unidos
OST - 65x55 - 1889


For most of 1888, Vincent van Gogh rented a room above the Café de la Gare in Arles [France], near the train station. It was probably there that he met Joseph-Étienne Roulin, a mail handler who became his close friend as well as an important subject for his paintings. Between July 1888 and April 1889, Van Gogh painted six portraits of Roulin (as well as several of Roulin's wife and children). In each, Roulin wears his dark blue uniform, with the word "Postes" clearly legible across his hat. Clothing plays a central role in this series, describing not only the sitter's occupation but also perhaps his political leanings; as an ardent socialist, he would have worn his worker identity proudly. Moreover, the uniform announces that portraiture is no longer reserved for the upper class.
Roulin is shown here from the shoulders up, his body centered and perfectly square to the picture plane. His gaze is steady yet gentle. In contrast to the symmetry of the composition, his features are slightly uneven: the nose is lopsided and the eyes are too, an irregularity that is accentuated by the heavier touches of red around one eyelid. The mustache hangs in uneven clumps over his lips. All these details add to the naturalism of Roulin's face, which is even more striking for the picture's many decorative qualities.
In The Postman, one of the first works to enter Albert Barnes's collection, Van Gogh turns an ordinary salt-and-pepper beard into a brilliant ocean of color. Thick licks of paint—green, black, purple, red—curl around one another, each stroke distinct and unblended; in a few areas the bare canvas can be glimpsed between them.