The Hidden Meaning Behind One of the Subtlest Self-Portraits in Art History
A painting of hope by a famous stereotyped artist
There will never be a satisfactory answer to the question of Vincent van Gogh’s cast of mind, but this painting offers a valuable glimpse.
Van Gogh’s Chair is apparently a simple image. Painted in 1888, it shows a homely wooden chair with a pipe and a pouch of tobacco on its seat. The floor is tiled, and the door and walls are painted alternative shades of blue. In the background a pair of onions — sprouting fresh green stalks — are perched inside a box with Van Gogh’s signature on it.
Empty chair
A surface reading might suggest a forsaken quality to the painting, a notion supported by Van Gogh’s earlier emotional response to the image of an empty chair: several years before he created this work, when his father died in 1885, the vacant seat left behind brought the artist to tears.
Further suggestion that Van Gogh painted his chair in the mode of tragedy comes from the fact that he owned an engraving by the British artist Luke Fildes, titled The Empty Chair.
