The Zouave

In June 1888 Van Gogh had been in Arles a few months and kept complaining to his brother that he could find no one to sit for him. Then he got hold of a young bugler from the Zouaves, a French light-infantry regiment garrisoned in the town, many of its men bound for postings in North Africa. He described the boy to Theo as having a small face, a bull neck and the eye of a tiger. You can see why the uniform tempted him. He set the blue jacket with its red-orange braid and the flat red cap against a green door and an orange-brick wall, colours he knew would jangle. He told Theo he wanted the portrait to be vulgar, even garish, and he thought he had managed it.