WRITTEN IN FRENCH Vincent van Gogh's correspondence leaves no doubt: from 1873, at the age of twenty, the portrait fascinated him. Even before he made the decision to become a painter, his numerous visits to museums, in the Netherlands, in England, and even in Paris, convinced him of the importance of the portrait, whether painted or photographic. . Painting portraits in order to measure himself against his fathers will therefore become the greatest challenge he will have to take on. But if Rembrandt painted for the bourgeoisie of Amsterdam, and if, in the 19th century, portraiture continued
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