El cartero Joseph Roulin

In Arles in 1888 Van Gogh had few friends, and one of the steadiest was Joseph Roulin, who worked at the railway post office moving the mail sacks. Van Gogh painted him again and again, and the whole Roulin family besides, calling him a good soul and comparing his big-bearded head to Socrates. Here Roulin sits square in his blue postal uniform, the gold braid and the word Postes stitched across his cap, filling the canvas like a man who will not be hurried. Van Gogh admired him partly as a plain working republican, warm and talkative over a drink. When the breakdown came that winter and the ear was cut, it was Roulin who helped look after him and wrote to his brother Theo.