선한 사마리아인(들라크루아를 모사)

Van Gogh painted this in the psychiatric hospital at Saint-Rémy in May 1890, in the last weeks before he discharged himself. Recovering from a severe breakdown, he worked the way he often did when he could not paint from life, from a print. He had a small black-and-white reproduction of a Good Samaritan by Delacroix, the painter he revered above all others for colour, and he translated it back into colour from memory, all blue and violet set against yellow and red. The subject is a man who breaks off his own journey to lift a stranger who has been robbed and beaten. Van Gogh's brother Theo was supporting him through every one of these months. He left Saint-Rémy that same May, and was dead by the end of July.