Blue Self-Portrait

Vincent van Gogh painted this striking self-portrait in 1889, while living at the asylum in Saint-Rémy in southern France. His mind was troubled during these months, yet his painting reached new heights. The background comes alive with swirling blue-green brushstrokes that seem to twist and turn around him, carrying the same electric energy found in "The Starry Night," which he painted around the same time.

Van Gogh shows himself in a cool palette of blues, his beard reddish against all that swirling color. His gaze is steady and a bit weary, his face calm but alert. He sent this painting to his brother Theo as a kind of reassurance, a way of saying he was recovering and still in control of himself. The serious, quiet mood here feels worlds apart from his sunnier, warmer canvases.

Poverty pushed Van Gogh to paint himself again and again over the years, since he could rarely afford to hire models and his own reflection was always there. This particular portrait carries a tight, focused intensity that sets it apart from the rest. He would be dead within a year of finishing it, a fact that lends this frank study of his own face an added weight.