Camille was the postman and his wife’s second son. He was 11 years old when Vincent painted him.
Camille wasn’t just an important model; he also helped his father stay in touch with Vincent and Theo by letter. Joseph himself made lots of spelling mistakes, so when he wanted to make a good impression, he asked Camille to write his letters.
Schoolboy
When Camille arrived at Vincent’s studio to sit for his portrait, he was still wearing his school uniform. He was the textbook example of a schoolboy. This was exactly what Vincent had hoped for: he didn’t want to portray the Roulin family as individuals, but rather as archetypes. He wasn’t after a realistic likeness of the model, but a kind of symbolic representation of the stages of life, and ‘roles’.
Augustine Roulin came to embody protection and motherhood, Armand reflected the passage from childhood to adulthood, and Camille represented the schoolboy.
Vincent van Gogh, The Schoolboy (The Postman’s Son–Boy in Cap), 1888, oil on canvas, 63.5 × 54 cm, Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand
First portrait
The first portrait of Camille shows him in profile with his arm resting on a chair. Compared to the portraits that Vincent made of Camille's brother Armand, this work is more loosely painted, with thick brushstrokes. This portrait of Camille stands out in the Roulin series because the background is painted in two colours.
Vincent drew inspiration from the backgrounds that he had seen in Japanese prints. In Camille’s portrait, the orange and red background intensifies the blue of his school uniform and cap. Six weeks later, Vincent used a similar background in Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe.
Utagawa Kunisada, Mashiba Hisayoshi: The Paulownia Crest, from the series Contemporary Representations for the 36 Selected Flowers, 1862
Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait with a bandaged Ear, 1889, private collection
Two portraits with a yellow background
In the second and third portraits of Camille, the 11-year-old boy is set against a bright yellow background. This time, he faces us head-on, his gaze slightly shy and averted. The portrait is composed of loose brushstrokes rather than flat areas of colour, with a varied palette. The blue of the beret, the green and red of the jacket, and the yellow of the background: all of these colours are echoed in Camille’s face.
The two portraits are very similar. Camille probably posed for the first version, and Vincent created the second as a repetition. This allowed him to improve some shortcomings. In the first version, Camille’s right eye is slightly closed. Vincent painted his models as he saw them, but decided to open the eye a little more in the second version, so that the bright blue eye corresponded more clearly with the blue of the beret.
Other refinements also reflect how Vincent looked for ways to enhance the harmony between colours. The button on the uniform is a bright red accent against the green jacket – a red that reappears in the outline of the beret.
Vincent van Gogh, Camille Roulin, 1888, oil on canvas, 43.2 × 34.9 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee, 1973
Vincent van Gogh, Portrait of Camille Roulin, 1888, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
Which came first?
For many years, it was believed that the portrait in the Van Gogh Museum collection was the first version that Van Gogh painted of Camille. However, recent research has shown that this is actually the repetition. A charcoal underdrawing was found in the museum’s portrait, but not in the other version.
The other portrait is also more roughly executed, suggesting that Vincent had to work quickly while Camille sat for him. In the Van Gogh Museum’s version, the colours in the face are applied with greater clarity and confidence. The difference in brushwork and the thickness of the paint also indicate that the version in Amsterdam came later.
Camille’s life
Camille Roulin joined the merchant navy as a cadet in 1890. He later joined the army. He was deployed to Saigon (now Ho Chi Min City in Vietnam, then a French colony) on three occasions, but spent most of this time in Marseille and Toulon.
In 1905, Camille returned to Lambesc and moved in with his mother. He worked as a bricklayer and helped rebuild the village following a major earthquake in 1909. When World War I broke out in 1914, Camille was sent to the front. In 1916, he was discharged on medical grounds after contracting tuberculosis. He died in Lambesc in 1922, aged 44, as a result of the illness.
Photo of Camille Roulin in 1909 (32 years old)
Next part
Of all of the Roulin children, it was daughter Marcelle who held a special place in Vincent’s heart. The cheerful baby reminded him of the child of Sien Hoornik, the woman he had once lived with in The Hague. In the next part, you'll discover more about the five portraits that Vincent van Gogh painted of Marcelle.