Self-portraits of a tortured soul that haunt to this day

Of all the artists in history, Vincent Van Gogh is the one we think we know best. Why? In part because of the myth of him as a ‘troubled genius’ that has built up since his suicide in 1890, aged 37, and in part because of the candid selfportraits he painted, which offer a window into his soul.

Van Gogh painted roughly 35 self-portraits, just under half of which have been brought together for a remarkable exhibition at London’s Courtauld Gallery. By remarkable, I don’t just mean the quality of the works, but the fact that so many of them are being seen together at all. Museums and private collectors worldwide don’t tend to like parting with these masterpieces.

Van Gogh painted all his self-portraits in a three-and-a-half-year burst towards the end of his life. In his earliest attempts – such as Self-Portrait with Felt Hat (188687) – he looks a bit guarded and stiff, not to mention bourgeois.

In the works that followed, however, he started injecting copious colour and radically loosening his brushwork. He suddenly looks more vulnerable too.

In Self-Portrait (1889), on loan from the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, Van Gogh captures himself at work, dressed in an artist’s smock.

The vivid orange of his beard heightens the gauntness and pallor of his face.

And what a haunted face it is.

We all know the end of Van Gogh’s story. A view of these pictures offers a tragically gripping look at him in the months leading up to it.