Joseph Roulin worked for a post office in the French town of Arles. He didn't carry letters—he rather was sorting mail at the train station. In 1888, Vincent van Gogh moved to Arles, a fifteen-hour train ride from Paris, in the hopes of creating an artist cooperative.
The plan never came to realization, and the artist found himself lonely and isolated—a situation exacerbated by his inability to speak the challenging local Provençal dialect. Joseph Roulin was van Gogh's neighbour, they lived on the same street—and became close friends. The painter created over 20 portraits of Joseph Roulin and his family. This picture, which van Gogh boasted of having completed quickly, in a single session, was painted after Roulin got a better-paying job and left Arles for Marseilles. Some scholars think that this portrait was not painted from life but rather from memory or from previous portraits. [caption id="attachment_16164" align="aligncenter" width="867"]
a man who is not bitter, not melancholy, not perfect, not happy and also not always perfectly honest. But such a good fellow, so wise, so feeling and so faithful.Between August 1888 and April 1889 van Gogh painted six consecutive portraits of Roulin, three of which had flowers in the background. The postman is portrayed in a frozen moment of time, but full of energy, all but buzzing with life. In the hands, face and even the brushstrokes of the blue uniform, the viewer senses a man conscious of being watched. In another letter van Gogh sent to his brother Theo, he wrote that of all subjects, the modern portrait excited him the most. As he elaborated, I want to paint men and women with that something of the eternal which the halo used to symbolize, and which we try to convey by the actual radiance and vibration of our coloring. Portrait of Joseph Roulin is a great example of that idea.
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