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Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam
125 Questions and Answers

#77/125 Did Van Gogh ever depict himself smiling?

Marta Hordziej asks whether Van Gogh ever depicted himself smiling. Check out the answer.

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No, Vincent doesn’t smile on any of his self-portraits. He always looks serious, and that was the look he was after. Throughout art history, happy self-portraits are a rare sight and Van Gogh wasn’t about to change the tradition. He didn’t paint self-portraits to practice conveying emotions, rather to experiment with colours, techniques and styles of painting.

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Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait with Pipe and Straw Hat, 1887
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