The painting Self-Portrait with Portrait of Émile Bernard by Paul Gauguin is one painting in a series of self-portraits along with a self-portrait of Émile Bernard & another by Van Gogh. These portraits were shared among them to build a community of artists that were not studying art academically at the Salon. This painting is also titled “Les misérables” because that was the name of a book, which includes a loner-type hero who has to break rules to do the correct thing that Gaugain had basically identified himself with in this portrait. In the composition itself, Gaugain shows himself off to be lonely by pushing himself into the corner of the piece as well as the contrast between him & the bright floral background he’s propped up upon. Gaugain had also considered this piece to be abstract at the time with the move away from natural lighting mixed in with the clashing colors of the background.
This work was my main inspiration for my own piece as you can clearly see I took a lot of concepts from it from the way the piece is composed to the set up contrast between the main figure & the world around him.
Similar to the last painting covered, Henri Matisse by André Derain was made as an art trade between Derain & Matisse, but unlike Gaugain, Bernard, & Gogh, Derain & Matisse had painted each other instead of lending one another self-portraits. Derain uses a very interesting style of painting that takes more of an impasto approach where brush strokes are not blended together, but instead are applied in multiple small strokes to give a sense of contrast.
From this piece, I was inspired by the general style of refusing to blend brushstrokes together, so I went & copied it.
