The Last Self-Portrait of Van Gogh

The Last Self-Portrait of Van Gogh

Stories Behind the Works of Art

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The Last Self-Portrait of Van Gogh

Self-Portrait without Beard (1889). Van Gogh

In 1889, Vincent voluntarily entered the hospital for the mentally ill, a former monastery on the outskirts of Saint-Remy.

He described this moment of his life as a “shipwreck,” a time when, paradoxically, he produced some of his most admired paintings (such as The Starry Night).

He was productive only for a few years, during which Vincent became Vincent. During that time, he spent a whole year in a place full of alienated people, where most of the time he was lucid. (His moments of crisis add up to about three months, so we can deduce that for nine months he was totally lucid and surrounded by a nightmarish atmosphere.)

Of the more than 40 self-portraits he painted throughout his career, this is the last one. And we are struck by something that makes this a different painting; it is as if there is “something not right.”

And then we read the title and understand that, strangely, the artist appears without a beard. The reason is somewhat innocent: his mother Anna was 70 years old, and he decided to give her a self-portrait as a gift. So he painted himself neat and healthy to convince her that he was well. (His mother probably suspected that if he was in a hospital for the mentally ill, he was not well at all, something that his death a few months later would confirm).

Vincent painted himself as healthy, intense, and energetic.

We do not know if he really succeeded in “deceiving” his mother Anna, but there is no doubt that it was a valuable birthday present: valuable for the gesture of affection with which it was conceived and valuable because a century later, it became the third most expensive painting in history at the time it was auctioned. It is a perfect example of the change that occurs in art and also in the observer’s assessment, for whom the work is not so much valuable in itself as the life and spirit of the artist who created it.

Recommended links:

Characteristic Elements of Post-Impressionist Painting.

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe .

Wheatfield with Crows.

Van Gogh and Japanese Art.

Last Days of Van Gogh.

Timeline: from Neoclassicism till the end of the 19th century.

Van Gogh and his Translation of Millet.

Other translations of Van Gogh.

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