Van Gogh's Self-Portraits From Paris to Saint-Rémy

Vincent van Gogh painted his own face again and again between 1886 and 1889, partly because a mirror cost less than a model. Seen in order, those faces track his whole short career: the dark Dutch tones of his first months in Paris, the dots and dashes he borrowed from the Impressionists and Seurat in 1887, the bandaged ear in Arles and the swirling backgrounds of the asylum at Saint-Rémy. The gallery runs chronologically, and each caption gives the date, the museum or owner that holds the painting today and what it shows about him at that moment. The test for a place is an oil self-portrait with a firm date and a reliable photograph of the actual canvas. Drawings are left out, and so are a few small studies that closely repeat their neighbors.