1888-1889 · Arles · Knot of Motif

The Roulin Family

He was not painting himself an imagined family — he was painting, for the few who really stayed, a portrait that might make a person stay.

F432 Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin 1888
F435 Portrait of Joseph Roulin (seated) 1888
F504 La Berceuse (Augustine Roulin) 1889
F441 Portrait of Armand Roulin 1888
F538 The Schoolboy (Camille Roulin) 1888
F440 The Baby Marcelle Roulin 1888

The Colour Experimenter

The postman portrait is a colour problem: how does a deep-blue uniform avoid becoming a black hole on the canvas? His solution was to put the saturated bright yellow behind it, then place gold buttons and red letters as bright points on the uniform itself — the blue, against the yellow, turns sapphire; the buttons become inlay. The same engineering goes further in La Berceuse — green coat, red hair, pink wallpaper, orange floor. Each picture is a colour-balance equation, with a person at its centre.

The Copyist

The decorative wallpaper behind La Berceuse — orange flowers on green — comes directly from the Japanese prints in his collection. Placing a figure in front of a flattened, decorative ground is a standard ukiyo-e move. He was no longer copying a specific print here. He had absorbed the figure-ground grammar of Japan into his own portrait method. The mature form of the copyist: replicate not the image but the syntax.

Painting

Six oil paintings — three versions of the postman Joseph, his wife Augustine (La Berceuse), the elder son Armand, the younger Camille, the baby Marcelle. Joseph's blue uniform carries gold buttons and red letters against a decorative bright yellow ground. Augustine's green coat sits on a pink dress against a wallpaper of flowers. Each painting builds a colour triangle to support a person — the portrait becomes a colour experiment, the family becomes its subjects.

Letter

Across 1888 and 1889 he returned to this family again and again. "I've done the portrait of the postman Roulin — a man who is neither literate nor a painter, but who is a good man and very intelligent." After finishing La Berceuse he wrote: "I told Gauguin that I had imagined a sailor far at sea, remembering his country, who could see a picture in the cabin — this picture is Augustine holding her child." Another letter: "The whole family is very interesting to paint."

Place

Arles, next door to the Yellow House. Joseph worked at the railway post office — uniform of dark blue, beard like an admiral's. Augustine was his wife, three children at home: grown-up Armand, school-age Camille, infant Marcelle. This was Vincent's closest thing to a family in Arles — Joseph came over after his shift to drink a glass; Augustine nursed the baby in the next room while he painted. Later, when he collapsed and was hospitalised, it was Joseph who took him there.

The Colour Experimenter

The Copyist

before

In Arles he knew few people. Roulin was the one he saw most — a postman, a republican, talkative, indifferent to whether or not he was a painter.

now

He painted Roulin himself, Madame Roulin, the three children. They were among the few in Arles with whom he entered a real, everyday relationship — the postman, the wife, the children, the coming and going, the choosing of pictures, the care after his illness.

after

What he sought in these portraits was not only likeness, but an order of intimacy that might make a person stay. The Roulins were still in Arles at his most broken moment, and that was no small thing.

Events

1888-07 Synaesthetic Precision · Letter 655
Met Joseph Roulin, the postman at Arles railway station. The two began drinking together after Roulin's shift
1888-08 The Colour Experimenter · Letter 655
Painted the first Portrait of the Postman. 'Roulin is a man who is neither literate nor a painter, but good and very intelligent.' Saturated yellow ground holding the blue uniform in place
1888-12 The Colour Experimenter · Letter 660
Augustine Roulin gave birth to her daughter Marcelle next door. Painted The Baby Marcelle — Augustine's child
1888-12-23 Synaesthetic Precision
Vincent severed his ear. Joseph Roulin took him to the hospital. The Roulin family became his last link to the outside world
1889-01 The Copyist · Letter 736
After leaving hospital, painted the first version of La Berceuse. 'I imagined a sailor far at sea, remembering his country, who could see a picture in his cabin — this picture is Augustine holding her child.'
1889-02 The Colour Experimenter · Letter 739
Continued painting the entire Roulin family — portraits of Armand and Camille pushed forward in parallel. Each portrait built around its own colour triangle
1889-04 Synaesthetic Precision · Letter 743
Joseph Roulin was transferred away from Arles. The closest thing to family Vincent had in Arles dispersed. Two months later he voluntarily entered the Saint-Rémy asylum

From the Letters

J'ai fait le portrait du facteur Roulin — un homme qui n'est ni lettré ni peintre, mais qui est un brave homme et très intelligent.

I've done the portrait of the postman Roulin — a man who is neither literate nor a painter, but who is a good man and very intelligent.

Letter 655

Roulin, quoiqu'il ne soit pas tout à fait assez vieux pour être comme un père pour moi, a néanmoins pour moi des gravités silencieuses et des tendresses comme serait celles d'un vieux soldat pour un jeune.

Roulin, though he is not quite old enough to be like a father to me, nevertheless has silent gravities and tendernesses for me such as an old soldier would have for a young one.

Letter 736

Toute la famille est bien intéressante à peindre.

The whole family is very interesting to paint.

Letter 660

Letter Sources

Van Gogh letter records referenced on this page, linked to the Van Gogh Letters Project. vangoghletters.org