Painted in 1887, Self Portrait with Grey Felt Hat is a 44.5 cm x 37.2 cm( 17.5 x 14.6 in) oil on cotton painting that belongs to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Van Gogh was still living in Paris and got acquainted with many Modernists, being actively influenced by their style. Pointillism, especially, was something that certainly had caught the Dutch painter’s attention, incorporating it and giving his twist on the technique, resulting in his most famous works.

The painting shows Vincent from the upper chest, where one can see his blazer and tie and goes some centimeters above his head. The painter’s gaze isn’t directed to the audience but rather at something that is a bit to the right. Van Gogh employed a lot of broken color and big visible brushstrokes, reminiscent of Pointillism. The dry brush marks can be seen in many areas, especially around his neck.

The Dutch artist chose to use complementary colors. The most dominant is a deep blue, which spreads from his clothes to the background. The background, highly abstract, reminds the viewer of Byzantine art with its small units of color. Giving life and movement to the blue in the background, the artist applied many small dots of orange. His face was painted with a light yellow, while the shadows were done with green and blue. A beautiful turquoise blue was used for the most bright parts, such as the nose, eyebrows, and forehead. Orange and red are also present close to the small turquoise brushstrokes.

The result is one of the most famous painting masterpieces. With a chaotic yet identifiable unity, Van Gogh presents himself to the public, and the Art World, probably energized by his recently met paintings companions and the urban life in Paris.

Despite his now worldwide fame, Van Gogh’s trajectory as an artist was a relatively slow one. His earliest works don’t have the intensity and formal experimentation of his late canvases. Still, his choice of themes was always tied to his personal life, which can be attested through the sheer number of self-portraits he has. Being captivated by some of Paris’s modernist generation, his color palette becomes more prominent and radical. In the following year in his life, the painter left Paris for Arles. It was there that he made some of his most remarkable masterpieces, being influenced by the local settings and letting his colors reach impressive intensities.