ArtsViewer.com

Paul Gauguin - Self-Portrait Dedicated to Vincent van Gogh. Les Miserables 1888. Gauguin painted himself in the guise of
Jean Valjean, the main character of Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables, equating the vibrant and loving fictional outcast with the
misunderstood artists of his time. He wrote: ‘By doing him with my features, you have my individual image, as well as a portrait of
us all, poor victims of society, taking our revenge on it by doing good’. The cheerful floral pattern on the wall was Gauguin’s way of
testifying to ‘our artistic virginity’. - art-Gauguin.com