User:Eli185/La Berceuse

Eli185/La Berceuse
Eli185/La Berceuse
Artist	Vincent van Gogh
Location	Otterlo

La Berceuse is an oil painting on canvas (92x73 cm) made in 1889 by Vincent van Gogh in the collectin of the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo.^[1]

The painting depicts Augustine Roulin, wife of the postman friend of Van Gogh (also portrayed in the painting The Postman Joseph Roulin).

The work is influenced by Paul Gauguin's cloisonnisme, according to which every surface must be uniformly filled and surrounded by a black mark. Van Gogh, however, is not so loyal to Gauguin's suggestion and treats the skirt and above all the woman's face and hands in the usual way.

In the intentions of the painter, this painting was intended for a series, the painting was to constitute the central panel of a triptych, of which on the sides there should have been two still lifes with paintings of sunflowers, to hang in the cabins of a ship, to remember to sailors the sweetness of a lullaby. Augustine Roulin's portrait represents a real woman and at the same time an ideal, a symbol. With her humble gaze, her hands clutching the cord with which she swung the cradle, (berceuse means, in French, "she who cradles"). She is a female myth, that of the wife and mother, capable of consoling and appeasing the soul. Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo: "and I am only the artist", he was referring to this mythical idea of the woman, inspirer and bearer of the harmony necessary for creation, without which the artist would not be. The painting where it was thus almost a cult image, and therefore it does not matter that it is naturalistic. The portrait is strongly stylized: the figure does not detach itself from the wall but seems almost part of the floral decoration of the tapestry. Figure and background are on the same plane, without depth. Without chiaroscuro, without volume. The woman reveals herself for what she is: an imitation of reality, but an evocative image, an icon to be venerated. The berceuse has a fixed and melancholy gaze typical of the mother who sacrificed everything of herself.

Provenance

Jo van Gogh-Bonger, Amsterdam; Bernheim-Jeune, art dealer, Paris, 1907; purchased by H. Kröller-Müller at Bernheim-Jeune, art dealer, 13 April 1912 (fl. 8.000,-)^[2]