The Postman
Vincent Van Gogh
VINCENT VAN GOGH, 1889. OIL ON CANVAS.
A chance meeting in a train station cafe led to the most fruitful sitter relationship of Van Gogh’s career. Joseph-Éttiene Roulin was the post master at the Arles train station, and a heavy drinker in the neighbouring bar. He was, by all accounts, a kindly man, towering in stature with a long beard and a soft, ‘socratic face’, according to Van Gogh. The two men became drinking buddies, and then as Van Gogh fell into his most severe depressive episode, leading to the mutilation of his ear, Roulin became his carer and a big brother figure to the struggling artist. It was Roulin, in fact, who cleaned the Yellow House of the blood, who brought Van Gogh to hospital, visited him in his months long stay in the asylum, and updated his brother Theo about Vincent’s state. Van Gogh felt indebted to Roulin, and over a six month period he painted six portraits of the postman, and 17 of his family, including his wife and all of his children. No other subject besides Van Gogh himself was depicted so frequently by his brush, and he brings a nobility to his humble friend, painting him against an ornate background that speaks to the portraiture of royalty.