Portrait of Dr Gachet by Vincent Van Gogh Magnet

Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Vincent Van Gogh, oil on canvas 1890, is a painting of the artist’s personal physician wearing a blue suit and white cap seated at a red table. Van Gogh moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, a suburb of Paris, in the final year of his life to seek Dr. Gachet’s care. This is a copy of the original, more painterly portrait of the doctor, executed with more flattened, simplified areas of colour and variations of deep ultramarine blue with contrasting red and white. On the table is a purple foxglove herb from which medicines were made, a symbol of the doctor’s profession. The sad, melancholy expression of the subject’s face, resting on his right hand, conveys “the heartbroken expression of our time”, as Van Gogh himself described it. Vincent Van Gogh (1853 - 1890) was a Dutch painter of the Post-Impressionist movement known for bold, expressive drawing, swirling brushstrokes and bold, heightened colours. In early adulthood Van Gogh worked as an art dealer, teacher and pastor before taking up the full time study of drawing and painting in his late twenties. Influenced by Rembrandt, the 19th century Realists and Barbizon school, Van Gogh's early paintings featured studies of workers and peasants in sombre earth tones. Moving to France in 1886, Van Gogh met with the startling innovations of the Impressionist painters and began to apply their approach to colour and subject matter, which continued into the mature style for which the artist is most renowned. Van Gogh produced many hundreds of drawings and paintings including portraits, landscapes, still life and flower paintings, and numerous self-portraits that became a dominating influence on the modern art of the 20th century and made him one of the most popular artists of all time.