ABSTRACT
Shortly before Paul Gauguin joined Vincent van Gogh in Arles on October 23, 1888, the two artists exchanged self-portraits. Although their previous self-representations had been soberly realistic, in these works both men assumed fictive personae. Van Gogh depicted himself “in the character of a simple Bonze worshipping the Eternal Buddha”; Gauguin portrayed himself with “the face of an outlaw, ill-clad and powerful like Jean Valjean [the criminal-hero of Hugo’s Les Misérables, 1862] who also has an inner nobility and gentleness.” A close examination of the artistic and psychological contexts in which these portraits were created, supplemented by the lengthy descriptions both men provided in contemporary letters, demonstrates that the tragic outcome of the partnership in Arles could have been predicted and prevented, had both participants heeded the conflicting implications of their highly revealing selfimages.
