Post-Van Gogh Retrospective:
Happy Art Collectors

Dr. T.F. Chen

Happy Armond Roulin
Oil on canvas
48" x 36"
1993

Passionate and solitary, Vincent van Gogh spent much of his time in Arles lonely and misunderstood. He lived at the Hotel Alcazar before he moved into the Yellow House, and the postman, Joseph Roulin, and his family were some of the only Arlesians that welcomed him. With a humble yet steady job, Joeseph Roulin raised a family of five, all of which were portrayed by Van Gogh, resulting in twenty-three portraits in oil.

Vincent painted five portraits of "La Berceuse," the postman's wife Augustine, three portraits of Baby Marcelle, two paintings of Augustine with baby, two portraits of the elder son Armond Roulin, two portraits of the second son Camille Roulin, five portraits of Joseph Roulin, and another four drawings of his face.

In Vincent's "Portrait of Armond Roulin" (1888), the handsome youth sits self-confidently in a yellow cot and blue hat. T.F. Chen has placed him in front of a simple table with Cezanne's masterpiece of fruits and jug. On the wall behind Armond hangs a section of a Vietmanese antique door in a strong red color on the left, and Pablo Picasso's "Woman Huddled on the Ground with a Child" (1901) on the right. The  three prime colors, occupying three distainct areas, seem to interact in a kind of dialogue: red-yellow, yellow-blue, blue-red. At the same time, they are enriched by the orange, yellow, and green colors of the fruits upon the table.

Sitting among such nasterpieces and valuable antiques, Armond Roulin appears serious, as he tries on the role of an art dealer.