Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat

The technique is what makes it. Vincent had absorbed the pointillism of Seurat and Signac, but instead of dots he used short straight strokes that follow the form: the strokes fan out around his head like rays, run along the brim of the hat, and turn with the collar of the coat. Complementary colours are set side by side so that they vibrate, orange beard against blue coat, red strokes in the background against green. Get close and the face dissolves into a grid of separate touches; step back and it snaps into a sharp, watchful likeness. His eyes are green and unusually steady.

The museum opens its collection with a wall of self-portraits, and this is the one people remember. It shows the artist as a serious modern painter who has found a method of his own, a few months before he left Paris for the south. It also shows the cost: the face is thin, the cheeks hollow, and the tightness of the mouth hints at the nerves and exhaustion he described in his letters. Look at the signature-like scrawl of strokes where the hat brim meets the background, which is as expressive as anything in the face.

Did You Know? Vincent made about thirty five self-portraits in his life, mostly in Paris, because a model would have cost money he did not have.