A bearded man in a dark blue postal uniform sits confidently on a wicker chair, his gold buttons gleaming against a pale blue background. This humble mailman, captured in Vincent van Gogh's 1888 painting "Postman Joseph Roulin," became one of the most significant influences on the Dutch artist's life and work during his final years. While van Gogh is best known for his sunflowers and self-portraits, his relationship with Joseph Roulin and his family represents a pivotal chapter in art history that is now being celebrated in a major exhibition.
The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has brought together portraits of the entire Roulin family for the first time in Europe. "Van Gogh and the Roulins: Together Again at Last," running through January 11, 2026, showcases 14 of approximately 25 known Roulin portraits in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. These paintings, scattered across the globe, reveal van Gogh's deep admiration for family life and showcase the formal innovations that defined his late career.
Van Gogh arrived in Arles, France, in the summer of 1888, fleeing the exhausting pace of Paris where he had been inspired by Post-Impressionist aesthetics but struggled financially. Unable to afford models and lacking the social skills to persuade Parisians to sit for portraits, the shy and awkward artist dreamed of founding an artist community. Paul Gauguin eventually joined him at the famous Yellow House, but initially, van Gogh found himself isolated and struggling to make connections in the southern French town.
Everything changed when van Gogh met Joseph Roulin, a blue-collar postal worker who handled luggage and cargo. "He had a tough time when he tried to make friends—he was a difficult person to get along with—but he found a real friend in the postman," explained Teio Meedendorp, senior researcher at the Van Gogh Museum. Van Gogh was drawn to Roulin's honesty, progressive politics, and the industrious working-class spirit he embodied, seeing in him everything he admired about common laborers.
The artist's initial portrait of Roulin reveals both men's discomfort with the formal sitting process. Roulin's arms appear stiff and his facial expression awkward, perhaps reflecting his unease at being the center of attention. True to his perfectionist nature, van Gogh amended the painting midway through, changing the perspective to position Roulin's arms more naturally on a chair and table. The rough, monochromatic background hints at van Gogh's revolutionary vision for modern portraiture—less concerned with flattering detail than with creating an immediate, authentic impression.
For van Gogh, who idolized master portraitists like Rembrandt and Frans Hals, painting portraits represented the pinnacle of artistic achievement. "Painting portraits was the most important thing—the important subject, in fact, for an artist, and especially the modern portrait," Meedendorp noted, describing van Gogh's artistic philosophy. Unlike traditional portraiture that depicted wealthy elites in luxurious settings, van Gogh was determined to focus on working-class subjects, bringing dignity and artistic attention to ordinary people.
Roulin's role as a devoted family man deeply resonated with van Gogh, who longed for the domestic stability he had never experienced. "Family life was for him one of the most important things in life—something he never had," Meedendorp observed. "He saw in the Roulins an ideal situation—a simple, hardworking man, a charming wife, their children." This fascination led van Gogh to paint not just Joseph, but his entire family: wife Augustine and their three children, Armand, Camille, and Marcelle.
The artist's most celebrated portrait of Augustine Roulin is known as "La Berceuse" (1889), meaning "the lullaby" or "woman who rocks the cradle." Van Gogh created five versions of this powerful image, three of which appear in the current exhibition. Seated in a chair similar to her husband's, Madame Roulin embodies maternal devotion, holding a thread used to rock a nearby cradle. In all versions, she gazes away from the viewer with stoic nobility, representing van Gogh's idealization of motherhood and domestic life.
The Roulin portraits marked a crucial turning point in van Gogh's artistic development, showcasing the stylistic innovations that would define his late masterpieces. "This was the moment when he truly became a modern portraitist," Meedendorp explained. Instead of placing his subjects in naturalistic interiors as he had done in earlier peasant studies, van Gogh positioned the Roulins against flat, vividly colored backgrounds that were expressive rather than representational.
Van Gogh's portrait of young Armand Roulin exemplifies these groundbreaking techniques, featuring a brilliant turquoise background—a flattened color plane inspired by Japanese prints. Using sophisticated color theory, he employed complementary colors to make his subjects come alive: deep blue outlines combined with yellow overpainting created a three-dimensional effect that made figures pop dramatically against their backgrounds. The artist also began incorporating ornate, floral wallpaper patterns in later works, including "La Berceuse" and a subsequent 1889 portrait of Joseph Roulin.
In that later painting, van Gogh's style had evolved even further from realistic representation. Joseph's beard, previously depicted in short, simple tufts, transforms into flourishing, wave-like spirals—those distinctive swirling arabesques that would become immediately recognizable in his most famous work, "The Starry Night," painted just months later in 1889.
Beyond their artistic collaboration, Joseph Roulin provided crucial emotional support during van Gogh's darkest moments. In December 1888, when van Gogh experienced the mental health crisis that led him to cut off part of his ear, it was Roulin who visited him daily in the hospital, faithfully relaying updates to the artist's brother Theo. This loyal friendship provided van Gogh with the surrogate family stability he desperately craved.
Tragically, within weeks of van Gogh's breakdown, Roulin received a transfer to a new postal position in Marseille, suddenly depriving the artist of his most reliable emotional anchor. In late January 1889, following another mental health crisis, van Gogh voluntarily entered an asylum in nearby Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, hoping that isolation and routine might aid his recovery. Even during this difficult period, his friendship with the Roulin family endured through heartfelt correspondence, and van Gogh continued sending them paintings as New Year's gifts.
The Roulin family represented both inspiration and painful evidence of the stable life van Gogh could never achieve for himself. They were his last true companions during the Arles period, providing him with the subjects and emotional support that enabled him to fulfill a lifelong artistic ambition: becoming a truly modern portrait painter. Through these remarkable paintings, van Gogh not only documented a precious friendship but also revolutionized portraiture, bringing working-class dignity and innovative techniques together in works that continue to move viewers more than a century later.
