Two Men Who Recognized the Same Loneliness: Van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet

The man in this painting is Dr. Paul Gachet, who accompanied Van Gogh through the final years of his life. The portrait is dominated by cold color, with blue as its main tone, creating a melancholic, subdued atmosphere. That mood is reinforced by Gachet's expression — resting his chin on one hand, he looks worried and gloomy. Van Gogh himself described Gachet in this portrait as having "the heartbroken expression of our times," words that echoed Van Gogh's own personal feelings toward the man.

Van Gogh left Paris behind for Arles in 1888, but the following year, in 1889, his deteriorating mental health led him to check into an asylum in Saint-Rémy. The year after that, in 1890, at his brother Theo's suggestion, he moved to Auvers-sur-Oise, a small village outside Paris — the reason Theo sent him there was that Dr. Gachet lived in that village. Gachet practiced medicine for a living but loved art, and had built friendships with Impressionist painters like Manet, Monet, Renoir, and Cézanne; it's said that Camille Pissarro was the one who recommended to Theo that Van Gogh be sent to him.

At first, Van Gogh doesn't seem to have cared much for Gachet. In a letter to Theo, he wrote that Gachet seemed sicker than he was himself, making him hard to trust. But before long, Van Gogh found something they shared in common, and the two became close friends. In the end, the lonely, melancholic, isolated feeling Van Gogh sensed in Gachet is exactly what this portrait projects back at us.

During the couple of months he spent with Dr. Gachet, Van Gogh produced around seventy paintings, this one among them. Tragically, not long after finishing it, he took his own life with a revolver. Knowing that, the melancholy running through this painting feels even deeper looking at it now.